Truth, Trust and Lies
by Alcarcalime Losse
Summary: AU chronicle of the Marauders' lives spanning from their fifth year to the start of PS. Contains DH spoilers. Will contain SLASH later.
1. Chapter 1

Using the long branch he had found on the ground beside the tree, Severus Snape pressed the knot that Black had told him about, most of him still expecting this to all be part of some trap, for his actions to only make the tree more violent or, if the boy was telling the truth, for an ambush to lay before him. But still, there was a chance that this information was genuine and he would take that chance, he _had_ to get to the bottom of this. He had first noticed Lupin regularly missing classes during Arithmancy last year, when the Professor had insisted on implementing a new seating plan part way through the year and he had been forced to stare past the back of Lupin's head each lesson to see the board at the front of the classroom. At first, he didn't think anything of it, almost everyone had missed _some_ classes by that point. But by the end of the year, after only a few months, he knew that something was going on. He _had_ to know just what it was.

The branches stilled and Severus could now see an opening big enough for him to climb down into, so he did. He muttered a quiet "Lumos", not wanting to alert anyone of his presence just yet if this was a set-up, but seeing no other choice, or anything else for that matter. He needed to know what he was dealing with here. Moving the lit wand around as he walked along, he could see that the tree concealed a tunnel which seemingly led away from Hogwarts towards Hogsmeade. _That must be it, _he thought, _Lupin's going to Hogsmeade at night. Probably getting completely drunk with the others and missing classes the next day because he's still hungover. Idiot. Everyone knows you could just drink a Hangover Potion, not that difficult to brew. _Well, officially it was a NEWT level potion, but Severus felt confident that he would be able to do it himself. The hardest part would be obtaining the ingredients as they weren't in the standard set of fourth year Potions ingredients. _After that, it was simply a matter of..._

A noise from up ahead distracted him from his thoughts. He couldn't quite identify it, it was too far away and sounded quite muffled so he continued walking down the tunnel towards it to investigate, thinking that it was only an animal that had got in the other end of the tunnel that Lupin and anyone of the others that had gone had carelessly left open. Thinking this quickly led to more hateful thoughts of the four boys who had delighted in making the last four years of his life as miserable as possible. As Severus was thinking about that, he realised that although Lupin often missed classes, on the days when he had, all the others were in class. This was somewhat surprising as Potter and Black seemed to stop at nothing in order to get out of doing work. _How had Lupin managed to skip classes without them? Why had they put up with it? _For as far as Severus could tell, when Lupin was missing, the others didn't appear at all envious or discontent to be attending classes without him. In fact they all seemed slightly worried. _Odd._

The noise he had heard before was louder now, closer. He could now be sure that it was some kind of animal but couldn't tell any more than that. Straining his ears, Severus could also hear a faint noise from behind him in the tunnel. Up ahead now, he could see that he was almost at the end of the tunnel. After about a minute more of walking, during which the noise from behind him grew closer and sounded suspiciously like footsteps, he had reached the end. _What a waste of time, _he thought as he looked around before noticing a partially concealed trapdoor above his head.

Moving his lit wand to his left hand, Severus reached up to the trapdoor with his right. Feeling it lift slightly in response to his touch, he pushed harder and it opened all the way. Looking up, he could only see what his wand illuminated as there didn't appear to be any light sources inside whatever this was. _The noise from earlier must have been coming from in here, _Severus thought. As he was thinking this, it was confirmed. He heard a low growling coming from only a few meters away. It sounded predatory, hungry. Severus caught a glimpse of movement as it edged closer to him, but couldn't tell what it was. He was getting nervous now, he knew what kinds of creatures resided in the Forbidden Forest and defensive charms were not his strong point. Still, he doubted that it could fit through the quite narrow opening above him and he wanted to know what was going on here.

He could tell that someone was in the tunnel behind him and that they had almost caught up with him. Severus turned around, holding his wand out in front of him, trying to see who was there. Sensing his distraction, the creature above him lunged at him. Severus instinctively fell to the ground upon hearing this, narrowly missing the jaws of the beast as it became stuck in the trapdoor, snarling as it attempted to attack its prey.

Amidst his sheer terror, Severus was now able to identify the creature as he inched back away from it, it was a wolf. But wait, the shape of the snout... it must be a werewolf! But who could it be? _Of course, Lupin, _thought Severus, it all made sense, thinking back he remembered that Lupin missed classes about once a month, he was sure that if he looked up the dates they would all be shortly after the full moon.

_How could none of the staff have noticed? _Severus thought, _The Headmaster would never have admitted a werewolf into Hogwarts. Perhaps he was as blind as he was biased towards Gryffindors. _Severus could vaguely hear a voice from behind him shouting his name as a jet of red light shot past him and the beast stilled. He turned around, it was Potter, he looked angry but worried at the same time and Severus soon found himself lifted to his feet and pulled towards the exit of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow as Potter blathered on about them having to see the Headmaster straight away. But Severus wasn't listening, he knew that there was no way Lupin could stay at Hogwarts now, once the professors knew they would surely kick him out, and with Lupin gone, the others would lose their nerve – if he could get one of their friends expelled, they wouldn't dare to do anything.

His thoughts of finally besting the Marauders must have shown on his face because out of the corner of his eye, he could see Potter pale next to him, looking incredibly anxious as they approached the end of the tunnel.

* * *

Headmaster Albus Dumbledore paced in his office. Sirius Black had just come into his office and told him about what he had done. Apparently, after Sirius had realised just what he had done, he had told his friends and James Potter had gone after Severus Snape in an attempt to stop him finding out, but if this was unavoidable they would both come up to the office so that he could convince the Slytherin not to tell anyone else what he had just found out. Sirius now sat in front of the Headmaster's desk, not daring to look up at him to see the disappointment and retribution in his eyes. Dumbledore knew that Sirius now recognised how severe the consequences of his actions could be and was truly sorry for them. But that might not be enough. All he could do now was hope that James could get there quickly enough, it was too late to go down there himself, he'd never get there in time. The tension grew as the two waited in silence for any news. This was unbearable, being able to do nothing when his students' lives were in danger, helplessly waiting for someone else to remedy the situation while he had absolutely no control of the outcome. Of course, he could deal with the consequences of the events but only after the fact.

The two occupants of the office looked over to one of the portraits on the wall which had recently reappeared in its frame and informed them that the two boys were waiting outside his office, having been unable to guess the password correctly. The Headmaster thanked the portrait, feeling incredibly relieved to hear that they were both unharmed, but if they were _both_ here it must mean that Severus now knew about Remus' condition. Glancing over towards his desk, he could tell that Sirius was thinking along the same lines. A strange mixture of relief and anxiety was clearly evident on his face as he looked over at the portrait that had just spoken as if willing it to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that he hadn't just ruined his friendship with the other three Marauders, his only true friends, that Remus wouldn't hate him when he found out about this but most of all Sirius longed to be told that none of this had happened, that this was all just some strange dream and he would wake up soon.

Dumbledore knew of the desperation that Sirius must now be feeling, but nothing could be done now to change things. He would try to minimise the effects of this night on all of them, especially Remus who would have to most to lose if this became public knowledge, but that was all he could do, that and try and prevent it from happening again. He walked across his office, walking down the stairs to let the two boys up to his office where they would have to talk. They made their way up in silence, although he could tell that they both had a lot that they wanted to say to him and to Sirius. Emotions were running high.

* * *

James sat down on one of the comfortable armchairs that the Headmaster had just conjured, choosing to sit in the one that was furthest away from Sirius. Now that things had calmed down somewhat, his incredibly angry feelings from earlier came back to him. _How dare Sirius do that to Remus? Did he have no idea of what could happen? Or what the Ministry would have done if it had? Obviously not. _James noticed that the Headmaster also seemed rather angry at Sirius, angry and disappointed. He paid little attention to Snape as he sat down on the other chair, except to notice that he was obviously itching to tell the Headmaster about Remus. How anyone could think that Dumbledore wouldn't know about something that important in his won school, James didn't know, but he hoped that the Headmaster could sort the situation out. _If Snape told anyone..._

After the Headmaster sat down behind his desk, he appeared to notice Snape's expression and spoke:

"I'm sure that you wish to inform me of what you have found out tonight, Mr Snape, but before you do, I must tell you that I already know about-"

"What? You know? But why would you allow it?" Snape interrupted, spluttering slightly in indignation. Despite himself, James couldn't help but to be slightly amused by this reaction, the Marauder instincts were too deeply ingrained in him now for it to be ignored, even in a situation such as this.

"I assure you that all necessary precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of the students and Mr Lupin is as entitled as you are to an education here, no matter what the general public may think." He now turned to look at Sirius and James could see how much Sirius now regretted his actions. Well, that wasn't good enough, he should have thought about that before he so recklessly endangered several lives.

"I know that you realise what your actions almost led to. Events could have unfolded much worse. You could have caused the death of another student tonight, the suitable action here would be expulsion," Sirius looked up in alarm at this, "but that would raise too many questions, attract attention where it is not wanted." Dumbledore paused to think for a moment. "No, you'll have to stay at Hogwarts but that means that all of your privileges will be revoked for at least one year."

James could see Snape looking at the Headmaster will narrowed eyes, no doubt thinking about how Dumbledore always favoured Gryffindors and let them get away with anything. In this case, with attempted murder, and as much as James hated to agree with anything that Snape thought, in this case, he did. If this ever went to trial, Sirius would be facing several years' imprisonment. Although James knew just how important it was to keep this secret, he still felt that Sirius was getting off lightly. Maybe that had to do with how betrayed he felt right now.

Dumbledore continued explaining Sirius' punishment to them, "That means no Quidditch or Hogsmeade visits until further notice. You will not be attending the Halloween feast next week either. Is that understood?"

Sirius nodded glumly, accepting this without question. James could see Snape brighten slightly at the mention of Quidditch. With Sirius off the team, it was true that Slytherin would stand a better chance at the Cup this year, but it was still quite early in the year, if they acted quickly, they should be able to train someone in time for the second game in the year.

The Headmaster accepted this reaction and turned back to Snape, "You must tell no one about what happened tonight. I will know if you do and if that happens I will have no choice but to expel you immediately."

"What? You can't do that, people have to know about this!" Snape exclaimed, seemingly forgetting who he was speaking to in his anger.

"No one will find out about this from you, Mr Snape, I _will _know if they do and believe me, the consequences will be severe. Do you understand?" The Headmaster repeated, his tone making it obvious why he was considered by many to be the most powerful wizard alive.

Snape only nodded at this, but it was clear that he wasn't happy about it. James now saw his opportunity to find out what would happen to Remus now that this had happened. He had told them in their second year that he didn't remember what happened on the night of the full moon, so he wouldn't know about this when he woke up in the morning, who would tell him?

"Sir," James enquired after a moment of silence, "what about Remus?"

* * *

Poppy Pomfrey surveyed the infirmary as she exited her office the next morning. She was pleased to see that she had only two patients in her care today. Kathy Anderson, a second year Hufflepuff, had come to see her the day before with the flu, but she only needed to stay the night and would leave before Poppy needed to talk to Remus.

Late last night, Albus had come by and had told her what had happened, warning her that Remus may be hurt worse than usual due to the human presence the wolf would have sensed. He had also told her that she would have to tell Remus about it when he woke. Albus told her that she must do this as he would be gone on Ministry business in the morning and of the rest of the staff, Remus knew and trusted her the most.

Poppy woke Kathy and sent her on her way back to her dormitory before turning back around to face Remus. When she had first brought him back to the infirmary that morning she had noticed that the Headmaster was correct, his injuries were much worse than usual. She had done all she could right away but there was more she needed to do now.

When she had finished, she cast a charm that would let her know when Remus woke up and went back into her office to finish making a list of which potions she would need restocked soon.

* * *

An alarm sounding alerted her and she walked back over to Remus' bedside, mentally preparing herself for the task ahead. She could see that Remus was watching her, he could probably sense that something had happened and wanted to know just what it was.

And as she told him, watching the disbelief and betrayal show in his eyes, she felt her heart break.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next week, all of the fifth years noticed that something was up with the Marauders. Sirius didn't make jokes or mess around in class any more and the others hadn't been seen to talk to him at all. In fact, the lot of them seemed rather down. No one knew what had happened and the four of them weren't talking.

Many of those who shared classes with them had tried to find out what had happened, but none had had any success. All they would say was that they didn't want to talk about it, but their classmates could tell that Sirius had done something major. They had fallen out before, but it was never anything like this. In the past, they had always made up again within a few days if it even lasted that long. But this, this was different.

Those who had talked to him agreed that they thought that this whole situation was Sirius' fault and he knew it. Although the others refused to talk about it, Sirius had all but admitted that it was his fault, but what made this strange was that he didn't seem to resent the others at all for not speaking to him.

The other students had never seen anything like it. It was the main topic of discussion at mealtimes along with an article that had recently appeared in the Daily Prophet.

Three days ago, they had had news that a family – a pureblood wizard, his muggleborn wife and their two young children – had been murdered. Stories like this had been appearing now and then for the last few years, but what made this one different was the symbol left in the air at the scene. Aurors arriving there to investigate had determined that the spell used was powerful Dark magic, indicating a level of power in a Dark wizard that had not been seen since the days of Grindelwald. The public weren't supposed to know about this yet, but one of the Ministry office workers who had handled the paperwork had gone to the press. Everyone was anticipating another attack.

* * *

At the end of the month, the whole school bar one made their way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. Sirius was currently serving a detention with Filch. He had found out about this the day before, the Headmaster probably suspected that he would make good use of James' invisibility cloak whilst everyone else was occupied in the Hall, but he had obviously underestimated how the others felt about him still.

The students gathered in the Hall made their way to the House tables. The Halloween feast was an eagerly anticipated event each year and had become even more so since the Marauders had started at Hogwarts and had used the opportunity to pull a school-wide prank each year, livening up the school day as the holidays seemed so far away.

But as the evening wore on and nothing happened, the students knew that something was wrong and looking around, they couldn't see Sirius anywhere. At that point, many of them thought only that he had gone elsewhere to set up the prank or to get up to something else while everyone was at the feast. But then the students began to talk to the other years and what the fifth years had noticed over the past week quickly spread throughout the rest of the school. Soon everyone knew that something had happened between them, but luckily no one knew just what that was... yet.


	3. Chapter 3

A month had passed and most of the school's curiosity about what had happened had died down. They had all just accepted that things were the way that they were and paid the situation no extra thought as they were not personally affected. But there were five students who were greatly affected by it and one of them was currently in the library. 

After the Headmaster had let the three of them out of his office, Severus had gone back to the Slytherin dorms, feeling angry and resentful to the lot of them. He could have died _or worse_, but none of them cared about that. The Headmaster only cared about the Gryffindors, not about protecting the _lives_ of all the other students, they had tried to _kill_ him and now he wasn't allowed to tell anyone what had happened. The injustice of it all was astounding. And although Black had insisted that Lupin hadn't known about it, Severus was sure that they were all in on it, they always plotted these things together.

But as the weeks went on, Severus began to notice the discord among the Marauders. He had also started to go to the library during his free time, he wanted to find out everything he could about werewolves, maybe there would be something he could use against them or get others to realise without actually telling them so he wouldn't get into trouble with Dumbledore.

Now though, he knew that he must have been wrong about his original thoughts. Only yesterday, he had found a book detailing the Ministry law regarding werewolves and reading this had made him certain that Lupin had not known about Black's actions ahead of time. The book was very clear on the fact that any werewolf that killed or infected someone would be executed. That explained why the other three weren't talking to Black at all, he probably hadn't even known about that beforehand, may not even know now – Severus hadn't heard the Headmaster mention it when he talked to them that night.

He had also had to rethink some of his other assumptions. During his research, he had found out more about the finer details of lycanthropy and he was ashamed to say that he almost felt _sorry_ for Lupin. Almost.

* * *

Lily had noticed that Severus had been distracted lately. She was worried. He was spending more and more time in the library recently, in fact this had started at around the same time that the Marauders had fallen out, if she remembered correctly. It was all the other girls in her dorm would talk about for days and even after that, it was still a popular topic of discussion. She wondered if the two events could be connected somehow.

So she went with him one day, on the pretence of having to do research for a Care of Magical Creatures essay, the only subject that she did and he didn't. She sat down across from him and took out her supplies before pulling a random book off the shelves and starting to write, sneaking glances at the covers of his books whenever she could. Severus looked so engrossed in them that she knew that whatever this was, it was more important to him than a simple research project for school.

After an hour or so, she finally managed to see enough of one of the books to realise what Severus had been researching: werewolves. But why would he be doing that? He had been doing so for days, apparently. What possible reason could he have?

She continued working, resolving to ask him later.

* * *

Shortly before curfew, when they were leaving the library, Lily decided that she would ask Severus about this now.

"Why have you been researching werewolves, Severus?" Lily enquired, trying to keep her tone one of mild curiosity, "We covered them in Defence last year with Professor Harper."

"It's just revision for the OWLs. I wanted to get an early start this year." Severus replied, somewhat defensively, not wanting Lily to think that he had any other motivation than getting good grades at the end of the year.

"Hmm." Lily replied. She wasn't convinced. They didn't need to know each topic in that level of detail for their exams, not until they did their NEWTs anyway. Severus must have a personal reason to be doing this, something he didn't want to tell her about. But she would find out what it was.

* * *

Sirius woke up on the morning of the seventeenth of November then remembered what day it was and groaned. He had got used to his family not celebrating his birthday with him any more, but to have to spend it without his friends as well... if he could even still call them his friends. He didn't blame them for the way the were treating him now, he felt like he deserved that and more. But still, today would be hard.

He tried to pretend that today was no different to any other but by lunchtime he knew he couldn't shake the loneliness he was feeling. Any other year they would all be celebrating together, spending the whole day making jokes, having fun, sneaking down to the kitchens and not doing any work. But today the absence only emphasised how much the others must hate him. This was really getting to him by now, he just wanted to make things better.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the first day of the New Year and the students who had stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays slept in late as they had all stayed up late last night to celebrate. But Remus had still woken relatively early and had gone down to the Common Room. When he had first found out about what Sirius had done of course he had felt betrayed by him. But in the weeks and months that followed and he thought more about the situation, Remus realised that Sirius obviously hadn't thought about what he was going to do and what could have happened because of it. He probably hadn't even known about the Ministry laws in the first place anyway, most people didn't. Sirius typically didn't think before he acted and this was more of the same but gone too far.

The truth was, although he had been incredibly hurt by Sirius' actions, these last few months not spending any time with him, not spending any time as the four of them and the constant tension between them all was hurting him worse. Things could have been much worse – no one was hurt and no one else would find out thanks to the Headmaster. Remus just wanted things to be like they used to, they could work through this. It would take a while for him to trust Sirius again but he wanted their friendship back. He hadn't spoken to the others about this yet, he didn't think they would agree with him but once he had done it, he was confident that they would do the same as it was mainly him, well Snape too, that Sirius had wronged.

He had chosen to talk to Sirius about it today because the New Year was symbolic of a new start and they would be able to work things out without classes or work getting in the way.

A few more students came down to talk without disturbing their dorm mates, sitting down by the fire. After a while, Sirius walked down the stairs then, seeing that Remus was down there, started to walk back up the stairs.

"Sirius, wait!"

Remus stood up and walked over as Sirius stopped and turned around, seeing the hope in his eyes. "Can we talk?"

Then seeing the others in the room watching them with interest, added, "Not here."

Sirius nodded gratefully and followed Remus out of the Common Room.

* * *

They made their way to the Room of Requirement, walking into a simple room with only a couple of chairs and a lamp. They sat down, facing one another.

"Remus, I'm so sorry about what happened," began Sirius, "I-"

"I know you are, Sirius. These past few months have been terrible, it's like we're not _us_ any more, you know. Everyone's noticed it, it's not the same, it's... wrong." He paused, "I know that I should probably hate you forever for this, and I did at first, but I can't do this any more. I know that you never meant for anything to happen. Can we, all of us, try and start again? For the New Year?"

"I would like that. I know I don't deserve it but if you really want to..." At this, Sirius smiled and it was the first time that Remus had seen him do so since _it_ had happened. "Do the others know about this?"

"No, not yet, I thought I'd tell them after I talked to you. They're still really mad at you, I don't know if they'll want to go along with this."

"Well, if you do, they shouldn't have a problem with it, should they? They're not really involved in it, so it should be alright, shouldn't it?"

Remus noticed how desperate Sirius sounded, it was as if he was trying to convince himself that everything would be alright, like it used to be. He knew that Sirius had been all alone for these past few months, he had talked to a few people in their year but the three of them hadn't been talking to him and the rest of the school seemed to have worked out that Sirius was mostly to blame for splitting up the Marauders and had been slightly resentful towards him. Most of them, the whole school except the Slytherins, had enjoyed the Marauders' antics over the last few years and had wanted to be entertained again this year. They were disappointed when they weren't. So Remus knew that this had been a tough time for Sirius as well.

"I hope so, I'll talk to them if they don't want to go along with it." Now that that was out of the way, they both finally noticed how hungry they were. Although there had been a party last night, it was mostly just drinks and a few snacks, they hadn't really eaten anything substantial and it was now late morning. "Let's not talk about this any more today, it's in the past and nothing can be done to change it, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks for all this. I really am sorry Moony."

"I know, Sirius. Let's go down to breakfast."

Once they were dressed and seated at the Gryffindor Table in the Great Hall, they raised their glasses to a new start.

* * *

James and Peter had woken up to find the other two gone from the dorm and had decided to go to breakfast and try to find Remus later. They were just standing outside the doors to the Hall when Peter noticed something strange.

"Prongs, wait." Seeing James' look of curiosity and mild confusion, he added, "Look!" pointing at where Remus and Sirius were sitting. Together. Without fighting.

They stayed out of sight of the Gryffindor Table and continued watching the two of them from outside the Hall, occasionally getting strange looks from people passing in and out of the Hall. Remus and Sirius seemed to be getting along well, perhaps not as well as they used to but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

"What's going on? Why are they talking again?"

"I don't know why, but," James paused, thinking, "Remus must want this, he wouldn't be talking to Sirius otherwise."

"What about those Potions that can make someone forget that something ever happened? I can't remember what it's called, Dimen-something, we studied it at the beginning of the year. Could Sirius have used that on Remus?"

"First of all, _we _didn't study Potions, _you and Remus_ studied whatever that was. And Sirius hasn't tried anything before, I doubt that he'd go through all that trouble and planning knowing that in the end, it would make things even worse."

"So, what? You think that this is Remus' idea, then?"

"It has to be. And if Remus wants to do this, I think that we should do the same. It would make it a lot easier on Remus if he doesn't have to fight us on this and, really, it's his decision anyway, alright?"

"Fine. If you're sure about this."

James just held Peter's gaze, who nodded and then they went into the Hall to join their friends.

* * *

It was now the first week of classes after the holidays and everyone had returned from their holidays to find that the Marauders were now talking to one another again and spending the majority of their time together. Most students, seeing this, looked no deeper into the situation, believing that everything was perfectly fine again and moving on with their lives. But if they had just looked a little closer they would have realised that their friendship was now strained and slightly uncomfortable at times, no matter how much the four of them wished that it were different.

Their first lesson of the day was Potions, a required subject at OWL level and the Gryffindors had this class with the Slytherins this year. The bell had rung about five minutes ago and the Marauders were only now approaching the classroom.

Opening the door, they heard the Professor sigh and wait for them to take their seats before continuing to speak to the class.

"I'll talk to you four at the end." Most of the Slytherins shot smug looks their way at this, they had benefited the most from the Marauders' separation and now had to be on the alert again as they were typically the target of their pranks.

"Now, as I was saying, you and your partner will be working on your project for the next four weeks at the end of which you must hand in your project report to me. You will need to plan and carry out your own practicals to investigate the topic assigned to you. There will be one lesson a week reserved for this purpose, but you can of course use this classroom at any time as long as you are supervised at all times by myself or a seventh year. The rest of the work will be done in your spare time."

The class groaned at that, not wanting to spend any more time on schoolwork than they already were, especially with OWLs coming up in a few months. Professor Slughorn waved his wand and sent out rolls of parchment with the details of the project on to the whole class. A few of the students unrolled the parchment and quickly scanned the writing to see what they would be working on. Then, looking at their neighbours', they noticed that they all had different project topics.

"Each pair will be working on a different topic, and the pairs have already been decided." Seeing James' raised hand he continued, "No, you cannot switch partners or work on a project other than your own. The details of which topic you will be working on are on your parchments as are your partners' names." There was a shuffling as everyone looked to see who they would be working with. All of the pairs consisted of one Gryffindor and one Slytherin and all friendship groups had been split up, Slughorn wanted his students to focus on the work they would be doing, not on the latest gossip.

He paused, waiting for the class to quiet down again. "This will count towards your final grade, 30 with the examination this summer making up the other seventy, so it is important that you all take this seriously. We'll be starting this today so for the rest of the lesson discuss with your partner how you'll organise your time and workload, so all go and sit with your partner."

At first no-one moved, but then as the Professor stared at them all impassively they all stood up from their seats and moved to sit down next to their assigned partners, still trying to sit near to their friends, across the aisle or at the desk in front or behind them so that they could still talk if they couldn't put up with having to interact with their partners any more.

* * *

Remus moved over to where Snape was standing and they sat down at a desk at the side of the room. Of all the people he could have been partnered with, why did it have to be Snape? Especially given that he _knew_ now. It couldn't be worse. They got out their quills and ink.

"Before we start, can I just say that I'm really sorry about what happened. I didn't know what Sirius was going to do, I would have stopped him if I had."

"I know." At the shocked look he received at this, he elaborated. "The laws are very clear on that point. There are easier ways to commit suicide."

Remus nodded at this, grateful for the lack of antagonism. "I appreciate that you haven't told anyone."

"The Headmaster... _insisted_."

"Even so."

"Shall we get on with it then?"

They read through the information that Slughorn had given them, working out what they would have to do and deciding what they needed to do first. They agreed to each research one area of the topic and meet at the weekend in the library to go through it and sort out what they would need to do in the practical session next week as well as what they would need to look into next. But what they hadn't noticed was that Lily was sitting at the desk behind them and had heard their conversation.

Remus was surprised at how they could still work together civilly after what had happened, but he was pleased that this may not be so bad after all.

* * *

At the end of the lesson, after the four of them had spoken to the Professor and promised to be on time in future, they left the classroom and headed down towards the greenhouses for Herbology. They had all been partnered with Slytherins and the others were now complaining about it as they left.

"Bad luck Moony," James was saying, "being paired with Snape and all. How bad was it?"

"It wasn't really that bad at all. I think we just both realise that the most important thing here is that we get this done. It's easier if we just get on with it."

"Yeah, the _work's _important. Whatever." James laughed, "It's just an excuse to not do anything during lessons. Shame we couldn't choose our own pairs though, I'm stuck with Rockwell."

"Well, we're all stuck with Slytherins, aren't we? Just Slughorn's way of 'welcoming' us back, I suppose, but _four weeks_. How will we survive?"

They all laughed, even though they weren't looking forward to having to the weeks ahead.

* * *

Severus had at first been surprised to see Lupin's name on his sheet of parchment. Of all the people he could have been paired with, why did it have to be him? He had been quite apprehensive about having to talk to Lupin after what happened, although he knew that he hadn't had any part in it, he could still remember the sheer terror he had felt that night.

But their first lesson together hadn't been that bad. It was quite awkward, of course, but not unbearably so. He could tell that Lupin was shocked by his comments but they would need to be able to work together on this to get a good grade and the easiest way to do that would be to get along or at least be civil.

Lily had told him that she had been partnered with Eleanora Reed, although most of the Slytherins would hate to have to work with her given that she was muggleborn, Reed had at least realised that Lily was one of the best in the class and that working _with_ her would likely get her a better grade than working alone would. So she wouldn't have to deal with too much aggravation working on it.

But it was now time for their first meeting in the library so Severus left the Common Room and made his way over there.

* * *

Severus entered the library, looked around for Lupin and went to sit down opposite him, getting out the notes that he had made and the list of things they had to do. Lupin got out the same, he had been reading another book on Defence while he waited but put this away now.

"So, we've done most of the background research. We can do the rest of it now, it would be quicker if we work together. Then we need to sort out what we're going to do during the practical session next week."

"Shouldn't we also plan out when we need to do everything by? We need to leave time to prepare our report."

"Right, we can do that today as well. So, we're on to point three on our list. We can work on that now."

"Alright, I already brought some books over before you got here." Here, Remus indicated a stack of books next to him on the table, taking one for himself and pushing the rest over. "They looked like they'd have the information we need."

Severus thanked him and took down the book on the top of the pile, flicking to the index and then turning to the relevant pages, making notes as he read. He noticed that Lupin was doing the same.

For the most part, they worked in silence, occasionally conferring on some point or swapping books. When they had each finished making notes on the topic, they compared what they had written to make sure that they hadn't missed anything. Based on what they had already found out, they briefly made a list of the tasks they had yet to complete, deciding what they would need to do in their next practical lesson and scheduling more sessions like this in the next few weeks.

By the time they were ready to leave it was time for dinner, so they agreed to walk to the Great Hall together. On the way there, they confirmed what they would need to do before they met again and then separated at the doors before they went in.

* * *

Remus entered the Great Hall and went over to the Gryffindor Table where he could see James, Peter and Sirius. He had agreed to meet them here as he didn't know how long the research session with Snape would go on for. He was quite relieved that things had gone well today, even though the lesson last week hadn't been too bad, part of him was still expecting Snape to threaten him with exposing his secret or actually doing that once they were alone and Remus didn't have the other Marauders to back him up. So although he was mostly pleased with the way things had gone today and last week, he was still a little cautious just in case this was all some ploy to get the better of him.

Remus had now reached the table and sat down next to James, rather than Sirius. He knew that he had said that they could start over but he sometimes still felt a little resentment towards Sirius, it didn't happen that often any more so perhaps the meeting with Snape had brought that out. When Remus had sat down, the others had looked at him with something akin to sympathy in their eyes but had stopped when he assured them that nothing had happened.

"Have any of you even started working on your projects yet?" Remus asked, staring suspiciously at James and Sirius, who he hadn't seen do _any_ schoolwork at all recently, if he thought about it. It was kind of annoying how they could mess around every lesson and not do the homework and still get good grades. Remus had just accepted that that was just the way things were, but he knew that others in their year had stronger feelings about it.

At his question, the two laughed, "Of course not Moony. How can you even ask that of us?" James replied.

But at Remus' reproachful look, Sirius added, "We'll get it done. Probably not until right before the deadline but I do need to pass Potions."

James stared at Sirius, confused, for a moment before understanding. Although they had officially made up again, Sirius was trying everything to make it up to Remus, even promising to do work. But he did have a good point about needing to pass, they would need to get into the NEWT class if they wanted any chance of getting into the Ministry's Auror program. As he was thinking, he heard Peter tell Remus that he had been doing some research today, but didn't pay that much attention to their conversation.

"So what _have_ you two been doing all afternoon, then?" Remus asked, half curious, half demanding.

"Working on the map." Sirius replied with a grin.

"And?" They hadn't done any work on it since the beginning of the year. Remus, James and Peter hadn't wanted to work on it while they weren't talking to Sirius and Sirius hadn't felt like he had the right to work on anything related to the Marauders while that was going on. So Remus was quite excited to learn that they had started working on it again, even though he felt they should have made better use of their time.

"We think we have the outline complete now so we were trying to get it to show where everyone is." James answered, "We found a charm that shows where people are, but they're just dots on the page, it doesn't say _who_ they are. It'll still let us know if someone's coming but... we need to keep working on it. It has to be _perfect_!"

"Well, that's still good progress, we might be able to just adapt that charm rather than finding a completely different one." said Remus, thinking aloud.

"And, um..." James continued in a lower voice, looking around to make sure that no-one was listening to their conversation, "We've also been practising the other thing."

"Already?" Remus was surprised that they'd want to resume their Animagus practice so soon after what had happened and only just over a week since they had all made up. When they had told him in second year what they intended to do, he had tried to dissuade them, what they were attempting to do was incredibly dangerous, not to mention illegal, and that was just considering the Animagus transformations themselves. If they lost the transformation during the full moon, they could _die_. But they had insisted and wouldn't listen to him about this, telling him that it wasn't his decision. There had been no major mishaps so far but Remus would make sure that they were fully prepared before allowing them to come to the Shack.

"We thought we should start again as soon as possible, we've already lost almost three months of practice time, but I think we're nearly there!" James replied excitedly, "We should be ready in a few months, maybe even sooner than that. This is our year!"

The others all seemed pretty excited by that, but Remus was still apprehensive about it. He knew that they _knew_ what he was, but what if when they _saw_ it for themselves, they decided that they'd been wrong all along and didn't want to be friends with him any more. Or if not that, it was still very dangerous, what if something went wrong or someone found out? It would be a disaster. Aside from these worries, Remus felt that he would be happy about this once he knew that they wouldn't be in any danger from him, but right now, he wasn't too sure.

* * *

After their first research session in the library together, Severus decided that he didn't really mind having to work with Lupin on this project. Of course, since all the pairs were one Slytherin and one Gryffindor, he would have preferred to work with Lily, but of all the other Gryffindors, at least Lupin would actually _work_ on the project instead of expecting him to do it all himself just because this was his best subject. And, although Potter and Black had always done their best to make his life miserable and Pettigrew gazed at them with adoration at these moments, Lupin had never actively participated in this. He had never attempted to stop them either, but Severus thought that that was more of an effort to placate his friends rather than enjoyment of their actions.

They seemed to be able to work together well without antagonism and had already made good progress on their project which they should be able to finish by the deadline with no real trouble unlike many of the other pairs who would undoubtedly leave everything to the last minute or spend the whole time they were supposed to be working arguing about every little thing.

Severus really needed to get a good grade on this, although he was confident that he would do well in the exams he also needed to do well on this to keep his overall grade high to be guaranteed a place in the NEWT class and also for when he had left school and was looking for employment as it was common for employers to check OWL grades as well. Although Lupin was not at the top of the class, he was still capable of working at a high standard and to understand the work that they were doing, which meant that Severus wouldn't have to spend his time trying to explain everything to someone who was just incapable of grasping even the simplest concepts in Potions.

_That was all it was,_ Severus thought, _just appreciation of being able to get through this as easily as possible, nothing else._

* * *

It had now been a week since Professor Slughorn had assigned his fifth year class their research projects and today was their first practical lesson on it. So far, no-one had asked for more time to work on their practicals but he knew that most of the early work was research based so he wasn't yet worried about whether the class were doing the work or not. He would find out soon enough.

He had instructed the class to bring all their notes to these lessons and while they were brewing today, he planned to check how much work each pair had already done. Of course he suspected that a few of the pairs wouldn't have done any work by that point, but that would be reflected in their final grade.

When the bell rang announcing the start of the lesson, he got up and went to the door to open it and let his students in. He could tell that their moods were slightly, or more than slightly, subdued today due to the new arrangements. But they would just have to deal with it. This would be good preparation for life after Hogwarts for them, you couldn't always work with people you liked, he himself didn't, but you got on with it.

He hadn't told the students this, otherwise it would be rendered useless, but as well as the usual marking points, he would also be grading them on how well each pair was able to work as a team – if they split the work equally and got on with it without any major disagreements they would get a high mark for that area, but if all the work was left to one person and the other didn't do anything at all they would both get a low mark.

He knew that the other Professors weren't doing anything like that but he felt that it was important for the students to learn to at least tolerate one another and with the now more frequent attacks and the growing rivalries between the Houses, it was more important now than ever. He knew that when this was over, most of them would simply go back to the way things had always been and forget all about this but at least a few, he hoped, would learn from this experience.

After the students had settled down, having retrieved the ingredients and equipment they would need, Slughorn instructed them to have their notes out on the desk as they brewed their various potions. They all started to do just that and after a moment to allow the class to settle down again, he went round the room, skimming through each pair's notes to see how much work they had done already and, from the differences in handwriting, how evenly spread that work was between the two of them.

When that was done, he went back to his desk as he had some second year essays to mark. But while he was doing that, he made sure to pay attention to how each pair was getting along, making a few notes. Most of the pairs acted as though they'd rather be anywhere but here, grudgingly doing the work, if they did any at all. There were a few pairs that seemed to be making good progress, both with the project and each other. Evans and Reed were working quite well together even if they both seemed quite unhappy about having to associate with one another. On the other hand, Monaghan and Pettigrew were having a disastrous time of the practical, the Potion they were making was a bright red but was at this point supposed to be pale blue. Monaghan seemed to be getting more and more annoyed with Pettigrew every time he failed to follow the instructions correctly or something else went wrong, whether it was his fault or not.

In fact, the two that seemed to be getting along the best were Snape and Lupin. Slughorn was quite surprised at this, to say the least. He, of course, knew of the history between Snape and the Marauders and knew that there had been some... incident last October involving Snape and Lupin specifically, evidently the cause of the four boys' falling out until recently. He didn't know any of the details as the Headmaster had refused to elaborate, but he would have thought that they would be amongst the least likely pairs to be able to work well together.

Slightly surprisingly, the class got through the lesson without any explosions or accidents. They were all just cleaning up their desks and putting the equipment away when the bell rang signalling the official end of the lesson. Slughorn told them to continue to work together on their projects and also reminded them of some homework from their normal lessons which was due in later in the week before dismissing them.

The students hurried out of the classroom, eager to meet up with their friends again on the way to their next lessons. Overall, Slughorn thought as he watched them leave, the lesson had gone pretty well. Some of the students had made progress already and they all seemed to have at least made a good start on their projects. His idea seemed to be working out after all.

* * *

After the lesson, the Gryffindors made their way down to the Greenhouses for Herbology, their next class. There was still some snow on the ground but the paths between the castle, greenhouses and Quidditch pitch were clear. The main topic of conversation as they walked down there was the last lesson with most people complaining about having to work with Slytherins on their project. Only Lily and Remus didn't complain, Lily because she recognised that no amount of complaining would change the situation and because they were now a quarter through the time given to them for it and Remus because he honestly didn't mind it that much. He and Snape were able to work well enough together and when they had had to sort out when to meet next at the end of the last lesson, Snape had suggested days that didn't coincide with the full moon this weekend without Remus having to ask, even though that was when they would usually meet. It seemed that away from all of the interhouse rivalry and the other Marauders, Snape could actually be nice and considerate, something that Remus had not expected, not towards him anyway.

* * *

It was now Saturday afternoon and Severus and Lily were meeting in the library. Having friends in another House had its problems, obviously they had some classes together but apart from that they had to meet in the library or outside in the grounds. And now that the weather was so bad, they could only meet in here. That meant that they usually had to do their homework when they met, or at least appear to be doing so, or risk being kicked out. It also meant that there were always other people around and anything they said could be overheard so they couldn't talk about anything too personal unless they went to find some unused classroom to talk.

Last Saturday Severus had met Lupin to work on their Potions project, but the full moon was tonight so they would meet on Monday instead. He had suggested that at the end of the last lesson and could tell that Lupin was surprised that he wouldn't have to argue for it. But what would be the point of that? The whole idea was to get this project done as well as it could be within the time allowed, it would be easier if they didn't have to waste their time and energy fighting about everything.

Severus had arrived at the library first and had started on an essay while he waited for Lily to turn up. She walked over and sat down at his table only a few minutes later, also getting some work out. She looked around for a moment and then appeared to recall something.

"Aren't you supposed to be working with Lupin today?" She asked, "You did last week."

"He was busy," Severus replied, "we'll do it on Monday instead."

"Hmmm." Lily had seen Remus in the Common Room earlier and he hadn't seemed like he was busy then but he _had_ left a few minutes before she did – alone. What could he possibly have to do without the others and without coming here? There honestly wasn't much else _to_ do and it would have had to have been a good reason for Severus to reschedule their research session without seeming at all annoyed. He had to know what it was, otherwise he wouldn't be so calm about it. What wasn't he telling her?

* * *

Madam Pince had seen many of the fifth year Potions students in here in the last few weeks, much more than normal. If you were working with someone from another House there wasn't really anywhere else _to _go, so the ones that actually bothered to do the work came in here. Professor Slughorn had set his fifth years this project for the last two years, always Gryffindor and Slytherin put together, and it had always been the same – the students spending their time fighting, usually just verbally but sometimes physically too, instead of getting on with the work. In every year, there would also be a few pairs that would do most of the work individually and only put it all together right before the deadline, avoiding having to spend time together that way. But there had never been a pair of students who didn't fight at all or act any differently than if they were working with somebody from their own House. Of course this wasn't the case with the other two Houses, but they all got on well enough anyway so that was no surprise.

And this year had been no different. Only three weeks had passed since the beginning of term and already she had witnessed more raised voices and fighting in the library than she had in the months leading up to the holidays. It wasn't just the Slytherins who had started things this year though, she had noticed that some of the Gryffindor boys had also been deliberately aggravating and had even started some of the confrontations themselves.

But this wasn't the case with all of them. She had noticed a few pairs that didn't seem to have had any problems, any major problems anyway, with working together. Evans and Reed had both simply got on with the work, though neither of them stayed or spoke to each other any more than was necessary. They were both just doing what it took to get it done. There was another pair that wasn't like that either, however, Lupin and Snape hadn't had any fights while they were there, of any type, nor had they avoided each other for as much as possible. This was surprising considering their history. In fact, apart from the first few days when things had seemed very awkward and tentative between them, they had seemed to get on quite well, much better than the other students in their class and as far as she could remember, they had also been doing the most work together.

She of course knew about Lupin's 'condition', the Headmaster had told all of the staff members when Lupin had started at Hogwarts. She had been shocked initially that Dumbledore would allow this given the general opinion, and the Ministry's viewpoint, on the subject. But after that shock had faded away, she hadn't really minded. Lupin never caused trouble in here and that was what she cared about.

But a few months ago, she had noticed that Snape had been doing a lot of research on werewolves, reading practically every book on the topic that wasn't in the Restricted Section. She had heard Evans asking him about it and wasn't convinced by the answer he gave. She didn't know exactly what had prompted him to start looking into this but she was sure that he knew or at least suspected what Lupin was. To her surprise, he hadn't appeared to do anything about it yet and had seemed to get on with Lupin relatively well, given the circumstances, but if it seemed likely that he would, she would have to tell the Headmaster about this.

* * *

Remus was surprised by how little he had had to struggle to get on with the work over the last few weeks. He had expected Snape to oppose his every move but it hadn't been like that. Despite what they had all thought, he seemed to have had the easiest time of all the Marauders on this project. James and Sirius were both capable of doing the work, and doing it well, but instead chose to use this opportunity to force their partner into doing as much of the work as possible and then causing trouble when they had to do some of it too. Remus had heard that they had even started some fights although neither of them had admitted to doing that. Peter, on the other hand, was actually trying to do well but just didn't understand what they were doing and it didn't help that Monaghan had no patience at all for him, using each research session that they actually spent together to belittle him and making him so nervous during their practical lessons that it was no real surprise when he made a mistake.

But Remus was just able to get on with the work. Snape hadn't seemed to be annoyed to have to work with him, other than having to work with a Gryffindor, and they were both good enough at the subject to be capable of working well together. At first, it had been strange to see each other as they hadn't done so since before _it_ had happened, but after a while it became easier and they had been able to just concentrate on their work.

Snape had surprised him when he had scheduled their meetings around the full moon without even mentioning it, it was as though it was completely normal and didn't need to be spoken of rather than his biggest secret that, if it got out, would mean the end of his time at Hogwarts and would turn most of the people he called friends away from him.

After that, they had stopped only discussing the work they were doing and began to talk about other things, nothing important, just about their other lessons and other trivial things. It didn't seem like that much but it helped to break up the monotony of their work and to stop Remus feel so on edge. Up until around this point, he had felt that if he did one thing that Snape disagreed with, or simply on a whim, Snape could still tell everyone about him, no matter what the Headmaster had said. But now Remus felt more confident that that wouldn't happen, if it was going to it would have happened already, especially with this situation forcing them together.

Once Remus had come to that realisation, he had stopped being so worried to go to every session and had instead begun to appreciate them. He _did_ enjoy spending time with James and the others but not all of the time. Some of the things they did he didn't always agree with and it was good to spend time with other people anyway. So instead of finding that he hated having to work with Snape, he found that he quite enjoyed it. He wouldn't say that they were friends, far from it, and they probably wouldn't spend any time together once this project was finished, but it would be good while it lasted.

* * *

Ever since their meeting two weekends ago in the library, Lily had been thinking about all the suspicious things she had noticed lately about Severus. First of all, there was that day when he hadn't seemed at all bothered by the fact that Lupin had other plans when they would usually meet. It would have had to have been a good excuse, but whatever it was, Severus wasn't telling her. Over the past few years, she had also noticed that Lupin missed a lot of days of school. If this was one of the other Marauders she wouldn't have considered it at all strange, just them skipping classes. But Lupin worked too hard in class to want to miss classes, especially when the others weren't. It was strange, but there had to be a reason behind it and Severus knew what it was. She had to know.

So, using her class notes to work out which days Lupin has missed over the last half year or so, she made a list of all the dates she could remember. At first there didn't seem to be any kind of pattern to it, but then she had noticed that they were occurring at regular intervals – around once every four weeks. It was only when she had thought to cross-check these dates against her calendar from last year to see if anything else had happened around those times that she had missed, that she noticed what was also happening on the days she had noted down – the full moon.

After she had had that realisation, she knew that Severus must have also found out. Months ago she had found him obsessively researching werewolves with no reasonable explanation, he must have found out then. Even though she had been friends with him for years now, she was still quite surprised, and pleased, to learn that he had found this out but had not done anything with the information. It was well known how Severus and the Marauders, most of them anyway, hated each other and the damage that he could have done by revealing this...

Now that she thought about it, the day when the Marauders had fallen out coincided with the date of the full moon in October, that was also just before Severus had begun his research. Something must have happened then, something important that had led to Severus finding out or at least suspecting that that was the case and that had caused the rift between the Marauders. But what could it have been?

She had only found out last year when they had studied werewolves in Defence how the wizarding world in general viewed them. She had been at first shocked to learn that this was the common opinion, of course werewolves were dangerous during the full moon but the rest of the time as well? But after everyone she had spoken to had told her the same thing she had begun to think that perhaps there was something she was missing as she had been brought up with no knowledge of magic, after all most of what she had known, or thought she had known, about these things she had learnt from films and television and how accurate could that be?

Now though, it appeared that she had been right initially. What most other people thought couldn't be right, she _knew_ Remus and he wasn't at all like they said. They had to be wrong about this, each person simply taught to think that way by their parents who had been taught by their parents, none of them having had any proof. But she hadn't been told any of that and was free to decide for herself and based on the evidence she had, she saw no reason to act any differently. Sure, it explained a few things that she had been curious about, but that was all. Aside from that, it really made no difference to her at all so she had no reason to do anything with the what she knew and she certainly didn't want to cause any harm by revealing the information so she resolved to keep quiet about it. Maybe one day she would tell Remus that she knew about him but she didn't know him well enough to do that yet and besides, it may only worry him to learn that someone had worked it out and above all, she didn't want to hurt anyone.


	5. Chapter 5

It was now the beginning of February and the dreaded Potions projects had been completed and handed in, by most students anyway, resulting in the relief of many of the students and the desire to never have to do something like that again. Remus could understand what they were feeling although he didn't feel the same way. If Snape hadn't have behaved in the unexpected way that he had done, Remus thought that he would feel the same as the rest of the Gryffindor fifth years. In fact, if he was honest to himself, he was almost disappointed that it was over, towards the end of the four weeks he had begun to enjoy the time he spent in the library working on it with Snape.

They did have some other lessons together, it was true, but they didn't spend any more time together in those than they had in Potions before this year. And that would never change if James and Sirius kept acting they way they had been for the past four years. Besides, they were fifth years now, fifteen or sixteen years old and it was time that they started to act like it instead of behaving like they were little kids. If Sirius and James were going to apply to the Auror program, they would need to stop messing around and start getting on with what they were supposed to be doing.

Maybe if he said something about it they would listen to him. Sirius especially had been doing everything he could to try and make things up to Remus recently so perhaps he would take note of what he said even if the others didn't. Remus had never really been too happy about the way the others had always treated people they didn't like, especially the Slytherins, he knew only too well how it felt to be the victim of abuse because of something that you had no control over. But before now he hadn't felt able to say or do anything to stop them, these were the first real friends that he had had and he didn't want to lose them or worse, have them turn on him instead. So he had kept quiet until now.

He had asked for the others to meet him in their dormitory that afternoon as he needed to talk to them about something, he hadn't told them what though. As usual, he was the first one there but then he had arrived early to sort out what he wanted to say one last time before the others got there.

Peter was the next to get there only a few minutes after Remus. He had been looking for a book from the library to help him with an essay for his Muggle Studies class, a subject that none of the others did and although Remus had some experience in that area, the essay also called for an extensive history of the topic so Remus couldn't help. He hadn't really needed to talk to Peter about this but he would need to know what was going on as well as the others.

While they were waiting for the other two to turn up they began to work on some Charms questions that were due in in a few days time. Although Charms was not Remus' best subject, he was able to help Peter on some of the harder questions.

Sirius and James sauntered into the room together about half an hour after they were supposed to get there. They both seemed unconcerned about this, greeting the others and moving to sit on their beds with uttering a single word of apology.

"What took you so long to get here?"

"Oh, McGonagall wanted to _talk_ to us. Gave us detention for next week as well, when will they learn that that doesn't make any difference?"

"Detention? What did you... wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I need to talk to you both."

"Why? What's wrong?" Sirius enquired, now leaving all joking aside.

"It's about how you've been acting towards the Slytherins, Snape in particular." The two shared a significant look, this wasn't such a surprise given the past month, they had both noticed how Remus' attitude towards the forced study sessions had changed over time. "I haven't said anything before but I think you know how I feel about it and I think that it's time that you... I don't know... tone it down.

"I know that you won't stop," he continued, seeing their sceptical looks, "but we're fifth years now and you're getting too old to keep behaving like children." Remus knew that Sirius would be more likely to listen to what he had to say, so instead turned his attention to James.

"James, do you really think that Lily will ever agree to go out with you if you continue like this? He _is_ her best friend, you know."

"She'll come around eventually. I just don't understand why she hangs around with that... Slytherin." He finished lamely, realising that Remus would not appreciate his comments right now.

"You shouldn't generalise them. Snape's not that bad. Do you think any of the other Slytherins would want to associate with her at all? She is muggleborn. Doesn't that show that he's not like the rest of them?"

Remus could tell that this had made them think, they probably had never even considered this before but Remus knew that they had to see the logic of his point.

As they took a moment to think about this, Remus looked over at Peter. He looked vaguely worried as if expecting a huge argument to start at any moment and for them all to be split up again as they had been a few months ago. Remus gave him a reassuring smile before turning back to face the others as they began to speak up again.

"What have you been up to in that library, Remus? He didn't slip you a Potion to make you do this, did he?" Sirius joked, but at Remus' disapproving look acquiesced, "Fine, but the rest of them are fair game and if he starts something, I'm not going to let him off with nothing, alright?"

Remus nodded and looked at James in question. "Alright, but just for Lily and like Sirius said, if he starts something, no promises." He was looking at Remus quite suspiciously, as if trying to work out why he would make this request all of a sudden, but agreed to it anyway if only to keep the peace, he didn't want to have to repeat the past few months ever again and if this was what it took, fine. Also, he realised that if they continued to act like that, Snape may well be tempted to reveal what he knew, even if he was expelled from Hogwarts for it the damage would be done. They couldn't risk it.

He and Sirius looked at each other and made a silent agreement to discuss this later. What was going on?

* * *

Over the fortnight that had followed since Remus had made his request, James and Sirius had kept their promises. The rest of the school hadn't really noticed the change as they had simply moved their attentions to the rest of that House. They had also been spending most of their evenings and weekends, when they didn't have detentions that is, in the Room of Requirement with the others practising their Animagus transformations. Remus often came with them, working on some schoolwork or, more often, on the map which they had also made good progress on.

And finally, after three years, they all finally managed it. Unfortunately, the full moon that month had already passed a few days ago so they would have to wait for the next one. But what was a few more weeks when they had been waiting for years for this. Even though he had asked Lily out for the Valentine's Day Hogsmeade trip and she had turned him down, again, James couldn't have wanted anything else in this moment. Everything they had been working so hard for for years had finally been achieved and they would soon be joining Moony every month and make things more bearable for him.

After they had found Remus, who had been occupied with his Prefect duties at the time, and shown him what they could all now do, he had of course been ecstatic that they had finally managed to all do it after three years but he had also been grateful that there were still a few weeks before the next full moon. He didn't want them to do this until they were sure that they would be able to maintain the transformation for the whole night. It was too dangerous if they couldn't do that.

So for the next week or so, instead of working on their map or planning or carrying out any pranks, the three of them were practising maintaining the transformation for as long as possible. It was only with Remus' help that they managed to avoid detentions for not completing their assigned homework, working on it while they were otherwise occupied and then helping them all to do their copies quickly, making sure that there were key differences between them. He did feel a little guilty for essentially helping them cheat on all their schoolwork but he figured that they deserved it, it was after all due to him that they didn't have time to work on it themselves.

They all kept working on it until, just over a week before the next full moon, Remus was satisfied that they could do it. Now all he had to worry about was them deserting him once they had seen what he became every month. A part of his mind told him that he was being irrational, that James had already seen and that hadn't changed anything between them, but he didn't seem to be able to listen to it. No matter what any of them said about it, he wouldn't be able to actually believe them until he had proof. He was still just too used to the attitudes he had had to face before he had met the three of them. It would take time for that to change.


	6. Chapter 6

It was now the afternoon of the sixteenth of March, the day of the first full moon since they had finally all succeeded in maintaining the Animagus transformations for enough time that they could be confident of their ability to last the whole night, and all of the Marauders were waiting in the Gryffindor Common Room for the time when Remus would have to leave to head to the Infirmary and then go down to the Whomping Willow. They had agreed to wait until after sunset and then go down there under the Invisibility Cloak. Remus had told them how to get past the branches safely.

Remus' birthday had been six days ago and although they had celebrated it then, the whole House was celebrating their victory over Ravenclaw in the recent Quidditch match so this would be the main part of their birthday celebrations this year. Although Remus was currently feeling more anxious than he usually did at this time, there was also a sense of anticipation which was shared by the three new Animagi, a kind of nervous excitement that was building up as the day went on.

As they waited for the time to come when they would make their way across the grounds, none of the spoke about what was about to happen or about much at all. It was as if they were frozen in this moment and none of them wanted to break the spell by saying or doing anything.

But nothing they could do could prevent the passage of time and after glancing at the clock above the fireplace, Remus stood up and, after telling the others that he would see them later, left the Common Room.

* * *

A short while later, Remus had made it to the Shack and was now just waiting for the moon to rise. The others wouldn't be here until it did, he hadn't want them to see his transformation, they would either be disgusted by watching it or pity him more. Neither reaction was desirable. So, for now at least, he was alone in here, just waiting for the moment that he knew would soon be here. The moment that would always come, but hopefully this time it would be different.

* * *

Once Remus had left, the others waited until after sunset then went back up to their room to get James' Invisibility Cloak. Anyone still in the Common Room this late, mainly fifth and seventh years revising for the exams that would take place in only a few months, would simply think that they had gone up to bed.

Taking the Cloak out of James' trunk, they arranged it over themselves so that they were completely hidden by it. It barely covered them all, soon only two of them would be able to use it at once. Once they had walked back down to the Common Room they simply walked straight out to the hallway, seeing that no-one was paying much attention to their surroundings and wouldn't notice the portrait opening without seeing anyone there.

There were a few close calls on their way out of the castle as Filch and a few of the Professors crossed their path but they managed to get out undetected. The map would be so useful when it was finished but for now they had to make do with their own skills alone.

They crossed the grounds in silence, stopping only to stop the branches on the Willow before they each transformed and went inside, the nerves only now setting in, taking their place amongst the excitement and anticipation they were all feeling.

* * *

As the three of them approached the end of the tunnel, the nerves began to set in. They didn't know quite what to expect when they got there. Of course Remus had told them what might be likely to happen but he had told them before that he didn't really remember what happened, just vague impressions of the night's events, so they still felt like they were about to enter the unknown.

Even so, they continued on. They had been working towards this for too long to stop now and the small amount of nervousness they felt was outweighed by their great sense of excitement – they were finally doing it!

By this time, they had finally reached the end of the tunnel and now they all entered the house. Remus wasn't in the first room so they wandered through the house in search of him. They hadn't gone much further than a room or two when they felt a presence approaching them. Moony had found them.

Remus had told them that he wouldn't have any control of his actions but they still hadn't expected for Moony's personality to be so different from Remus'. He was so violent.

Once they had all reintroduced themselves and established order of dominance and such, they calmed down somewhat and simply enjoy the time they spent together. They stayed in the house all night, although it was a little cramped with all of them there, as they all knew how dangerous it would be if someone happened to be out on the grounds or even saw them from the castle. Even so, they managed to prevent Remus from hurting himself or them too badly throughout the night.

* * *

They continued on like this until, finally, morning came and the sun rose. The others watched in dawning horror as Remus transformed back before their eyes. They could clearly hear the sickening sounds of his bones breaking and reforming and were glad that Remus was currently unconscious so he wouldn't feel the pain of this. As for the rest of them, they were exhausted from lack of sleep and from the night's activities. Luckily they didn't have any classes the next day as they would all likely fall asleep in their lessons, which had happened before but the timing might make their Professors suspicious. There was a Potion that could be used to alleviate tiredness but none of them had the ability to brew it correctly so they would have to make do with sleeping in for the rest of the day instead.

Once Remus had completely changed back, the other three transformed back as well and stretched out after having been in their Animagus forms for so long. They would have to leave soon as Madam Pomfrey would be here to take Remus back up to the castle and they had left the Invisibility Cloak at the entrance to the tunnel.

Before they left, they caught sight of the scratches and bite marks that covered Remus' body. If it was usually worse than this then it was no surprise that he usually spent at least a whole day in the Infirmary recovering. But there was nothing they could do for him now as they couldn't risk anyone finding out what was going on, they _were_ breaking the law after all. So they hurried back through the tunnel, putting the Invisibility Cloak back on when they got back to the Willow and then sneaking out after having frozen the branches only narrowly avoiding Pomfrey noticing that the branches had stopped moving when no-one was there. They made their way back into the castle then headed back to their room to sleep. At least they would know next time to get plenty of rest beforehand and they now knew what to expect. Hopefully what they had done last night had made a difference, but they would have to wait until the afternoon to find out.

* * *

That evening, when they had all woken up again and after they had gone down to the kitchens for a late, very late, breakfast courtesy of the school House Elves, they made their way over to the Infirmary. For the past few years now, at least one of them had come down to see Remus most months. Although none of them had ever said anything about it, they knew that Madam Pomfrey knew that they knew – it must be obvious as they were here almost every time and never asked why Remus was there each time, not seeming curious at all. And when he had missed lessons and could convince them to do so, they would bring him his schoolwork and homework assignments with no questions asked even though James and Sirius often encouraged him to take this opportunity to avoid doing any of the work, as they would do. But none of them had ever told her and she had never asked. Even before Dumbledore had told her what had happened, they could tell that she had known. The rest of the staff probably did as well, now that they thought about it. Oh well, they didn't know the rest of it and that was what counted.

As they walked through the doors to the Infirmary, Madam Pomfrey spared them only a quick glance before turning back to another patient. Although it was almost the end of visiting hours, she knew from experience that sending them away wouldn't achieve anything, they would simply find a way to sneak back in later and besides, Remus was a special patient. She had noticed that he hadn't been hurt as much this month as usual, but it always varied and it may just be because the nights were getting shorter now rather than anything else. But really, what else could it be? So she left them to it as she went back into her office.

After she had left, they waited for Remus to wake up and then made sure that the other patient across the room couldn't hear them before speaking.

"Well, do you remember anything?" Sirius asked eagerly, they were all excited that they had finally done it but Sirius, more than the rest of them, had reason to want their efforts to make a difference.

Remus thought about it for a moment, then shrugged slightly. "No, not really, but I don't feel as bad as usual." He stared at each of them in turn, as if he had expected that something had happened to them and was now reassuring himself that they were all alright after all. "Are you all okay? Nothing happened, did it?"

"Just a few scratches, that's all, everything was fine. Just need to get some more sleep beforehand next time, is all." answered James, yawning.

Remus was relieved that none of them were treating him any differently after last night and that they were all willing to repeat it, there didn't seem to be any hesitation on that point, in fact. And now that they had done it successfully once, he was more confident in their safety for the next time.

He smiled, "Good. In fact, I think I do remember something now. Just the three of you last night, a brief flash really, but it's the clearest memory I've had so far." Remus thought back to the short memory for a while, remembering clearly for the first time what he experienced outside of the full moon. It was a strange sensation, but Sirius interrupted his thoughts.

"So, it's working then. Finally." Sirius was relieved that their years of hard work were paying off. They had started this to try and help out Remus and he was glad, they were all glad, that it had been worth it. Maybe this would help to show how sorry he was for what he had done last year, at least he was starting to make up for it now.

"Are you ready to leave now or do you want to stay the night?" James asked. After the first year or so, Madam Pomfrey had simply allowed Remus to leave when he felt up to it once she trusted that he wouldn't abuse that privilege or leave before he was actually ready. Usually, he would stay in the Hospital wing for at least a day after the full moon but it did vary.

"Yeah, in a minute." The presence of the three Animagi had been effective, most of the damage done had been from before they turned up and from their initial contact. As time went on and Moony became used to them, this would probably get even better over the months. So after he had got changed out of his pyjamas and taken the Potion that Madam Pomfrey had left on the bedside table for him when he woke up, they all left and made their way back to Gryffindor Tower.

It was now almost curfew but they knew that if they were caught as they didn't have the Cloak with them now, they would actually have a legitimate reason this time. Well, Remus did and the rest of them weren't particularly concerned as to whether the Professors would accept this excuse from them, they had had plenty of detentions before and didn't have anything else they _had_ to keep their time free for until the next full moon.

Luckily though, although they made it back to the Common Room minutes after curfew, they didn't meet anyone on there way there and the students still in the Common Room paid them little attention as they entered, now used to the Marauders' ways.

As they were about to make their way up to their room, Peter spotted a new notice pinned on the notice board by the bottom of the stairs. They all stopped to briefly read it, although they didn't find school matters to be the most interesting or important things, new events could always provide good mischief making opportunities. The notice announced that each of the fifth years would have individual careers talks with their Head of House in a couple of weeks and each of their names were listed with a time and date. Apparently they would also have to decide which NEWTs they would be taking at that time as well.

As he read this, the elation and relief that Remus had felt earlier faded as he realised that he would soon have to face up to what he would do after Hogwarts. He had tried to put this off for as long as possible but he knew that these decisions would be incredibly important if he wanted even a chance of getting a decent job. He would have to achieve so much more than the others to have even a fraction of their opportunities, not many people would be willing to employ him even with the best grades. Seeing this had brought back the reality of his situation which the others had made seem so far away that he hadn't thought about it for the longest time. But now he could see that he had been living in a dream world for the past four years.


	7. Chapter 7

Those two weeks had passed and, since their appointments for their careers talk with McGonagall were arranged alphabetically, Sirius had his first. So, when the others were headed towards their History of Magic class he instead made his way to McGonagall's office. He would have rather missed Potions as they hardly ever did any work then anyway but at least his interview wasn't during one of his free periods.

He had left his bag and books in their dormitory so that if he was dismissed before the end of History he would have a reason to be late back, not that Binns would care, or even notice, but he wouldn't put it past McGonagall to check on him. He was still on thin ice with the Professors and didn't want to push it yet until everything had calmed down again. Even though the other Marauders were willing to forget, or at least ignore, what had happened now, the staff were not so forgiving.

Because of his dawdling he had arrived at the Transfiguration office a few minutes late, the door was open so he just walked straight in after knocking lightly on the door to announce his presence.

As Sirius went over to the desk and sat down in the chair opposite which had been left for the students during their interviews, Professor McGonagall finally looked up from the younger years' work that she had been marking, looking slightly exasperated but also as if she hadn't expected any different from him.

"Now that you're here, we can begin." Then after a pause she went on, seeming as if she regretted asking the question before it had even been spoken. "Have you given your future _any_ thought at all, Mr Black?"

"Yes," he replied, and although he might have been affronted by the question he was merely slightly bemused by it, "I'd thought about being an Auror," he continued, excited by this prospect, then waited for what McGonagall had to say on the matter.

For a long moment, she merely considered him then she filled in part of the evaluation forms that the Heads of House had been given for each student. "That would take a lot of hard work and a level of commitment to your studies that you just haven't demonstrated so far. You will definitely need to improve that as you will need a good reference from me to get into the Ministry's training program."

Sirius nodded at that, "I suppose I could work on that. If it's really that important." He wasn't too pleased about having to do this but there were only two or so years left of school and, after that and the training, he would be free to continue with his ambitions of becoming an Auror without the hassle of having to study or attend classes again.

He hadn't considered all the paperwork that would come with it, however.

"Indeed it is." McGonagall seemed amused by this, as if she didn't believe that anything she said now would make any difference to his behaviour. She sorted through a pile of leaflets stacked on her desk until she found the one that she was looking for, handing it over to him. "This will give you all the information you need about the Ministry's training program, what the course involves, that sort of thing. I suggest you _read_ it, and thoroughly. If you're going to change your mind about this, now would be the time, rather than later."

Sirius casually flicked through the leaflet as she talked, reading a sentence or two as something caught his eye. The course would be three years long, which was about normal for these kinds of training programs and would consist of a large practical element as well as getting to work out in the field occasionally with more experienced Aurors during their third year.

When he looked up again, Professor McGonagall had stopped talking and was just finishing writing something else on the evaluation form, looking somewhat pleased that he had already taken such an interest in it. "Now that that's settled, we must sort out which subjects you will continue with next year.

"The Ministry require NEWTs in Defence, Potions, Transfiguration and Charms so you will need to take all of those, your grades should be good enough to get into each of those classes. That leaves two. I would recommend that you take Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures but if there are others you would rather take instead...?"

Sirius shook his head, of all the other subjects he was currently doing he would prefer to continue with these. He certainly didn't want to do History any more than he had to, in fact he wondered if _anyone_ ever did the History of Magic NEWT. It might not be so bad if the Professor was actually _alive_, and if they learned about anything other than Goblin rebellions.

Professor McGonagall ticked a few more boxes on the form and then looked it over, checking it. "That seems to be everything, but while we're here, there must be no repeats of what happened last October," and at this, all trace of amusement left her voice, "even though you seldom act like it, you are one of our most capable students and I would hate for you to ruin that."

Sirius had expected disapproval from her, but not disappointment so merely nodded. "Yes, Professor."

"Alright then, you may go," As Sirius got up to leave, she added, "and be sure to go to your next lesson. I will check."

So Sirius reluctantly went back to Gryffindor Tower to get his things and then made his way over to the History classroom, he wouldn't do any work, hardly ever did, but he knew that McGonagall would check as she had said and everyone else was already there so it was the perfect opportunity to tell them about his interview.

Although he would have to do considerably more work to get there, including taking NEWT level Potions which he wasn't too pleased about, Sirius was glad that he was now closer to achieving his dream and also distancing himself from his family's beliefs, making a name for himself, finally.

* * *

Lily was already waiting outside Professor McGonagall's office when Sirius left. It was now minutes past the time she had been told to get here by so he must have been late. _Typical_, she thought, _holding everyone else up_. She had had to miss the end of History to come here, and probably the start of Arithmancy too, but she would be able to get the notes from someone later even though she had both classes with the Ravenclaws and didn't know any of them very well. If not, she could always find the Professors during her free time to get the work. Hopefully she wouldn't have to catch up on too much work, she had enough as it was especially with all the revision for the OWLs that were in only two months.

As Sirius walked off down the corridor _away_ from the History of Magic classroom, Lily shook her head disapprovingly at this, Professor McGonagall saw her waiting outside and waved her into the office.

"Take a seat, Miss Evans." McGonagall instructed, gesturing to the only other chair in the room, so Lily did so, noticing that the Professor seemed relieved that she was there now instead of Sirius. Lily silently agreed with her.

"I apologise for the delay but it couldn't be helped. These things often take longer than expected."

"That's alright, Professor." Lily knew that this wasn't her fault and that McGonagall was just apologising to be polite but she still appreciated the gesture.

"First of all, I'd like to commend you on your excellent work this year, all your years here in fact, you have consistently been at the top of all your classes. If you keep it up, I have no doubt that you'll do very well in your exams, this year and in two years' time."

"Thank you." Even after five years here, Lily was still getting used to some parts of the different culture and everything she learned or experienced here was new to her, unlike many of the others, so she was still surprised that she was doing so well and compliments like this were still able to unnerve her slightly, she had never expected for her school years to be anything like this.

McGonagall continued, "With those kind of results, you should be able to get into any training program or job that you want to. Have you given any thought as to what that might be?"

"Yes, I'd thought about... Healing." Lily was slightly hesitant to reveal this, a small part of her afraid that McGonagall would tear her dreams apart as soon as she heard them, and even if this didn't happen, which Lily didn't think was very likely though she still feared it, she was still reluctant to reveal her career ambitions to anyone just because she was quite a private person.

But McGonagall seemed quite pleased by her answer, much to Lily's relief, she hadn't been sure that Healing would be the right course for her even though she wanted to do it. "Very good, in that case you'll need to take Potions, Charms, Defence and Transfiguration next year as they are required by the course." She consulted a piece of parchment in front of her before filling in something on the evaluation form, "Your grades are more than good enough to get into all those classes if that's still what you want to do..." Professor McGonagall trailed off here, in the past some students had changed their minds after hearing what subjects they would have to do. She didn't think that Lily would but thought it best to check anyway.

"It is, I had wanted to continue with those subjects anyway."

"Good. I have a leaflet here about the course for you." Professor McGonagall started to search through the stack of careers leaflets on her desk, but Lily reached into her bag and took something out first.

"Is this it?" she asked, holding it up. Earlier in the year, she had started researching the different careers she could go into after leaving Hogwarts using the section of the library dedicated to just that. It didn't seem to be used very much so she supposed that not many students knew that it was there, either that or they just weren't that bothered about it. There were a few different courses that she had found that she had considered and she had sent off by owl post for more information about all of them. It was only after she had read through them all that she had decided on Healing. She had brought the leaflet with her to the interview in case she wanted to refer to it at some point.

"Yes, that's it." McGonagall sounded slightly relieved at not having to search for it herself. "Have you read it yet?" At Lily's nod she seemed even more pleased. "You wouldn't believe how many students come in here without having thought about what they're going to do after they leave at all. Well done for taking the time to do so yourself. It shows initiative, that will be of benefit to you when you've finishing your training course.

"Have you given any thought to which other two subjects you'd like to do as well?" The question was almost pointless, with this amount of research already done she must have a good idea of what she wanted to do but McGonagall still had to ask.

"Well in here," Lily indicated the leaflet she had brought with her, "it recommends taking Herbology as well, so I'd like to do that." Professor McGonagall nodded and made a note on the form, her grades were high enough to continue with that. "It says that the sixth subject can be anything so I'd like to continue with Arithmancy."

"Very well. You've chosen quite a wide range of subjects so if you change your mind about Healing you'll still have a lot of options open to you. As you already know, the training lasts for three years." She paused for a moment, considering something, during which time Lily sat there nervously wondering if something was wrong with her choices. "I have no doubt that you'll get into the program, but you could always do with more experience. I'll talk to Madam Pomfrey for you, see if she is willing to let you help in the Infirmary next year."

"Thank you." Lily was not so sure of her chances of being accepted but this could make a huge difference to her application and also to help her assess if this was what she wanted to pursue as a career so she was grateful for the opportunity.

"Well, that's everything we needed to cover," McGonagall said, making a note to speak to Pomfrey later, "we finished a little late so go straight to your next lesson." As Lily got up to leave, she continued, "And send Mr Lupin in if he's out there already."

Lily nodded and left, she hadn't thought before about how lucky she was, she could go into practically any career she wanted to but she knew that the same could not be true for Remus given how most of society viewed werewolves. She had just never really thought about it before.

* * *

After Lily had left the office and told him to go in, Remus got up from where he'd been sitting and entered the office. They were late starting, probably because Sirius had arrived here late, making the rest of them late as well. That meant that he'd probably be late for lunch now as well as missing most of Arithmancy.

He hadn't been looking forward to this interview. Until now, he had just been able to enjoy his time at Hogwarts and ignore what must inevitably follow. But now that they were being encouraged to think more about their future careers, he could no longer ignore the fact that he would be lucky to find a job after he left Hogwarts, unless he got a Muggle job but even then he would likely still have some problems.

He went over and sat down opposite Professor McGonagall, waiting in silence as she arranged some documents out on the desk in front of her, reading one of them through quickly before looking up at him.

"I've looked through all the current relevant legislation and I think that it's best for you to try and keep your options open for now." She sighed and seemed to try and control the anger she was feeling for a moment. Before now, she had never really cared about the laws concerning werewolves, never even known that much about it, but why would she have? She hadn't had any reason to care before, but now that she did, she didn't know how this was allowed to happen, how otherwise reasonable people could be so unreasonable and illogical when it came to this point. She just couldn't understand it.

"There's no specific law preventing you from being hired but you will be required by law to inform employers of your condition whenever you apply for a job and they're allowed to reject your application or dismiss you at any time with no other reason. So it all depends on the employer, really."

She knew that Remus probably knew most of this already but she just wanted to go over everything again to sort out the best course of action to take and to make sure that the had all the facts.

"Most jobs require Defence, Potions, Transfiguration and Charms so you should continue with those." She looked at Remus questioningly and he nodded. He had wanted to do those subjects anyway.

"It would probably be easier for you to get a job in the Muggle world given that, so you should take Muggle Studies too." she continued, looking down at the documents in front of her.

"But don't I need to have done it at OWL level first?" Remus asked, confused. They had been told that they could only continue with subjects they were already doing and not start with new ones. So, although he agreed that taking Muggle Studies would be a good idea given the circumstances, he didn't see how he would be able to get into the class.

"Usually, yes, but I think we can make an exception. You've had enough experience of the Muggle world during your childhood for you to be able to cope with the NEWT class and you can always catch up with the work over the summer if you feel you need to. Would you like to do that?"

"Yes, I think that would be helpful."

McGonagall nodded and made a note on the form, "I'll get a copy of the OWL syllabus for you before the summer holidays so you can go over anything you're not comfortable with before next year starts. After that it should be no trouble to get into the NEWT class, I'll talk to Professor Richardson about it, I'm sure that it will be fine.

"As for your last subject, you have a free choice of the rest of your current subjects. Do you know which one you want to continue with?"

Remus had thought about this earlier, about which lessons he most enjoyed and, also, which ones he thought he would get the best results in. So he already knew what he wanted to do if he had the opportunity. "Yes, I'd like to take Arithmancy as well."

McGonagall made a note of this. "I would recommend taking seven subjects instead of six, but I don't think you'd have enough time to achieve as good grades if you did that and you'd be better off with six high grades than seven average ones so we'll leave that for now. If next year you think you'd be able to fit in another subject we'll sort it all out then."

Remus agreed with this. What they had to do now was to make sure that he was as well prepared for as wide a range of jobs as possible so that he would be able to take any opportunity that he was given. In an ideal world, he would have liked to do something in the field of Defence Against the Dark Arts, maybe teaching or research, but as things currently stood he knew that was extremely unlikely to happen. Of course, there was always the possibility that the laws could change in the future but for now he thought it best to prepare for a Muggle job.

"We also offer a course towards the end of your seventh year for those students intending to get jobs in the Muggle world; what to look for, how to apply, that sort of thing. I'll put your name down for that." McGonagall said, making a note to do that when the time came and quickly looking through the list of points she had meant to cover.

"Well, I think that's everything. I'll give you a few of these leaflets to look through, I'm sure I remember seeing some relevant ones here earlier. Ah! Here they are," she said, finding the ones she wanted near the top of the pile, having moved them there earlier, thinking that they would come in useful now.

She handed Remus a selection of them, ones dealing with jobs in the Muggle world and on how to proceed if you weren't sure about what you wanted to do, not exactly the situation here but it would have to do. She wished that there was something more that she could do, it wasn't fair that one of the best students in the year would have to struggle to find work while the others, even the ones with relatively low grades, would have little trouble.

The bell announcing the start of lunch rang so she sent Remus off as they had covered everything they had needed to. She had a few more interviews after lunch but she didn't have the other Marauders until tomorrow which was a relief as she wasn't sure that she could handle all of them in one day. Two were stressful enough.

* * *

Remus left the Transfiguration office and made his way down to the Great Hall for lunch as he was sure that the others would go straight there, not knowing when he would join them and therefore they wouldn't have waited for him. Overall the interview hadn't been that different to what he had expected it to be like. He had already known that his options were limited but he hadn't expected for Professor McGonagall to be so helpful, arranging things to make it as easy for him as it could be. He hadn't thought that he would be able to take Muggle Studies next year and had started to regret not taking it last year when he had had the chance, so he was grateful for the opportunity next year and for McGonagall's assistance in helping him catch up.

Even with all the information and reassurances he had just been given, Remus was still worried about his future. There was no guarantee that anything would change and even if it did, that didn't necessarily mean that things would be better for him. He appreciated all the extra opportunities that attending Hogwarts would give him compared to if he hadn't been allowed to, but still his options were quite limited.

By this time, Remus had reached the Great Hall and made his way over to where the others were sitting, just about to start eating their own lunches. As he sat down next to Sirius, he heard the others talking about their recent lessons and plans for what they wanted to do during the next weekend. It was going to be a Hogsmeade weekend but since Sirius still wasn't allowed to go they had agreed to quickly go and pick some things up and then return to the castle to take advantage of the time when very few people would be around to do some more work on the map and plan what else they wanted to do before the exams finally came.

"You're back already?" James asked, rather redundantly as it was obvious that this was the case but he was surprised so perhaps that could be excused. "Everyone else finished later than they were supposed to so we thought you'd be late too." James continued, curious. He was a little nervous about his interview tomorrow, not that he'd ever admit it of course, but this was the rest of his life they were talking about. What he decided on tomorrow would change his whole life, his career. What if he picked the wrong thing? He may have appeared to be confident about it to those that didn't know him very well, but James did want to have a good job, he didn't want to have to live off his parents' money forever and he didn't want to make the wrong decision now and ruin that before he'd even started.

"Well we didn't have that much to discuss, it didn't take that long to get through it all." Remus answered, sounding a little depressed still and James immediately regretted asking about the interview in the first place. Of course, they all knew how most people, and the Ministry, viewed werewolves and therefore how difficult things like getting a job or even getting admitted into Hogwarts in the first place must be for Remus, but it was so easy to forget all of that when it had given them all enjoyment and brought them closer together. And, most of the time, it wasn't something that they usually thought about a lot. After they had worked it out in their second year, it had just been an accepted fact between them, it just _was_. The only time they had ever given it any real thought was while they were practising the Animagus transformations, and now that they had finally succeeded, it was on their minds even more. But for them, the full moon was a time of fun and adventure, even today they had already been looking forward to the night that was still more than a week away, but maybe they shouldn't consider it like that when it brought only suffering for Remus though they _were_ trying to alleviate that all they could.

The rest of the meal passed without any major incident, though several Slytherins found themselves with red and gold hair after drinking from the wrong, or right depending on how you looked at it, pitcher of pumpkin juice. The Potion would wear off relatively quickly so the staff were not too concerned by this turn of events and the rest of the school had since taken these events as a sign that everything was returning to normal with the Marauders and were in general grateful for a distraction from their revision for the upcoming exams and all their schoolwork.

For the rest of the day, they didn't mention the careers interviews again during their afternoon classes even though their lessons were continually being interrupted by students leaving for and returning from their own. Of course, after the end of the school day and when they were in a quiet corner of the Common Room later without the others, James asked Sirius all about his interview, after all they did want to apply for the same thing and James' interview was early tomorrow morning but after earlier none of them wanted to keep bringing it up around Remus, they were sure that it was bad enough already without them making it worse.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day soon came and Peter had the first interview of the day. It was during one of his free periods, which he was actually quite pleased about as he was struggling enough with the work already without missing the lessons as well. But of course he acted as though he disliked this arrangement as he usually spent this time with James and Sirius as this was when Remus had Ancient Runes, which none of the others took, and he didn't want to risk their disapproval. Last year, and for parts of this year, they had all used this time to work on their Animagus training, but now that they had finally managed that they were all just hanging out in the Common Room until it was time to leave for the lessons they did have.

Just before Peter had to leave for his interview, he heard James going on about Evans again, even after almost five years he was still almost _obsessed_ with her, well, not quite obsessed but he did talk about her a lot still and even her practically constant rejections hadn't done a thing to change any of that. He didn't understand why James didn't just give up and move onto someone else, there were plenty of other students in their year, and in others, who would welcome his attentions. What was the point of continuing to pursue a hopeless situation?

But, looking at the clock above the fireplace, Peter realised that he had better leave now if he wanted to get to McGonagall's office on time. Which he did. He knew he wasn't as talented academically as the others so he would have to at least make a good effort in this to show that he _did_ want a good career and would work to achieve that. So he left in good time and actually got there a few minutes early.

He knocked on the door but there was no answer so he took a seat outside the office to wait for Professor McGonagall to arrive. She had probably been teaching a class or been in a meeting or something like that, Peter thought. Unlike James and Sirius, he didn't have a clear idea of what he wanted to do after Hogwarts, or even which subjects he wanted to continue with, he would probably just continue with the six that he got the best results in this summer. As for a job, he may well end up working for the Ministry in some capacity, most likely, in fact almost definitely, just a desk job but within an organisation that large there was always the chance of promotion if he worked well enough as an extra incentive.

Just before when the interview was due to start, McGonagall arrived carrying a stack of papers, probably work she needed to mark, and went to open the door to let them both in, seeming pleased that she wouldn't have to wait for him and could actually start on time today unlike yesterday.

When they had both entered the office, sat down and settled themselves, Professor McGonagall got out a list of his classes, his average marks in them and his predicted OWL grades from all his other professors.

"Thank you for getting here on time, I was just assisting some of my seventh years with their research projects." Then, looking down at the list in front of her, she continued, "Do you know which subjects you want to continue with next year?"

"Well, I wanted to take Defence and Transfiguration, but the rest I'm not sure about."

McGonagall checked this on the list, "Yes, those are your best subjects so I would have recommended those anyway. If you keep working as you have been you should achieve an E grade in both." She made a note of these subjects on the evaluation form.

"For the rest, I wanted to wait until I get the results and continue with whichever four I do best in."

Professor McGonagall nodded at this, every year there were always a few students for whom this approach was best and by doing it this way they had managed to get the best grades possible at the end of seventh year. "We can do that but for now I'll just write down the four that you're predicted best in. If when you get the results you want to change any of them, we can sort that out then."

Peter nodded to show that he understood, this arrangement did seem to be the best as before now he had been a bit nervous about not knowing which subjects he would be doing until part way through the holidays. But now he had, at least, some degree of stability.

"Let's see... Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Muggle Studies and Divination, I think. Maybe Astronomy instead of Divination, your marks in those are quite similar, so it will all depend on how you do in the exams. Are those subjects alright with you?"

"Yes, that's fine." Peter replied and McGonagall made a note of them.

"Have you thought about what job you would like to have at the end of this?"

"I don't know what specifically but probably something in the Ministry, an office job or something." Although he had spent _some_ time thinking about this, Peter still didn't know which department he wanted to work in or even what he wanted to do there so he was open to his Professor's suggestions right now.

"They do take on many recent graduates every year and there's always a wide variety of jobs available so even though you're not too sure what you want to do right now, there'll be something for whichever subjects you end up doing and towards the end of seventh year we'll help you to find something suitable." She was quite relieved at how straightforward this had turned out to be compared to the other Marauders yesterday, and no doubt James Potter next as well. In fact, they had even finished a few minutes early, helped by the fact that Pettigrew had actually arrived here on time. So after she dismissed him, she knew that she would have a few minutes of peace to herself before the next student got here.

* * *

And, just as Professor McGonagall had expected, James arrived late to his session, though not quite as late as Sirius had the day before. Before he had left to come over here, they had been in Charms and although he had welcomed the chance to get out of class legitimately, he had stayed a little longer than he had needed to, though he hadn't actually done any work during that time, but he had wanted to as Lily sat right in front of him in that lesson. He couldn't understand why she was _friends_ with Snape. How could she prefer a Slytherin to _him_? He didn't know why but he wasn't about to just give up. She would come around eventually.

By this time, he had finally got to McGonagall's office so he knocked and went straight in as he knew that Peter had left already as he had been in Charms with the rest of them. When he went in, McGonagall was reading a Transfiguration journal and didn't seem at all surprised that he was that late, just putting the journal away and scanning quickly through his details.

"Now that you're finally here," she began, but James knew that there was no real animosity there, "we can get started. I hope you've already put some thought into this..."

"Yes, I have, I want to be an Auror." James stated excitedly, even before he had been asked. Though she didn't show it, internally Professor McGonagall felt like sighing at this, _didn't they do anything apart?_ It had surprised her how quickly they had all made up again after what had happened in October, she had thought it would take a _lot_ longer than two months, if it ever did at all. Even after they had started talking again in the New Year, she had definitely not expected them to act like it had all been forgotten, and most of the time that seemed to be the case. It was astonishing.

"In that case, you'll need to take Transfiguration, Potions, Defence and Charms, which should all be fine given your current grades as long as you actually _revise_ for the exams," she answered with a stern look in his direction.

"Yes, Professor." James replied, and he probably would do _some_ revision this year but nowhere near as much as Remus would do, he only wanted to do enough to get into the NEWT classes he needed to, but that was all.

"The training program lasts for three years and you _will_ need to make more of an effort if you're accepted, it will be hard work so be sure that it's what you want to do." At James' nod, she continued, "As for your other two subjects, looking at your grades and based on what the Ministry look for, I would recommend Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures if that's acceptable to you?"

"It is." He certainly didn't want to continue with History, it was bad enough having to study it for his OWLs. He didn't really mind having to study these other two subjects, they weren't really all that difficult and might well come in useful once he was out of training.

McGonagall made a note of this and handed him the one of the course leaflets that she had put aside earlier this morning for what she had thought would be popular courses to save time today.

James had already had a quick flick through Sirius' copy of the leaflet yesterday afternoon so didn't look at it now, which he supposed McGonagall must have taken as a lack of effort or interest as she looked quite exasperated at this.

"The Ministry will expect all of its new trainees to be responsible for their own learning and there will be a lot of work outside classes that you will have to do. They will not tolerate wastes of lesson time so you _will_ need to work on improving that over the next two years. The Ministry do ask for a reference from us before they accept you and you may also be interviewed so you will have to demonstrate that you can be well behaved and responsible if you want to get in." McGonagall finished, sounding doubtful that he would be able to do this, but if that was what was required of him, he could do it, or at least appear to be doing so. He just wanted to get into the program, it would be worth it once he had finished.

"Alright." He hadn't known that the school would give the Ministry references for each applicant, Sirius hadn't told him when they had talked about it yesterday which meant that McGonagall probably hadn't told him in the first place. It seemed that the staff were now more angry with Sirius than _they_ were. Even after they had all made up again, which he had been a bit hesitant about but it was after all Remus' decision so he had gone along with it, Sirius' ban was still in place and the Professors were still rather cold towards him. James agreed that Sirius should be punished for what he had done, and tried to do, but this was just getting excessive now, no-one had been hurt and if they had all moved on, why couldn't the teachers? It was sometimes difficult to forget about what had happened when they weren't allowed to go back to normal. There was a Hogsmeade weekend in a few days and although they had worked around it, they all wanted things to be back to the way they were so they could move on with their lives. James hoped that Dumbledore would realise this by the start of sixth year so that this wouldn't go on any longer than it should.

"Well, that's everything. Try not to be late to your next class." McGonagall said with a touch of amusement, knowing how unlikely it was for him to ever be on time for anything from experience. She knew that the two of them would make good Aurors if they could just put the work in and they needed that right now. The forces against the Ministry and against Hogwarts were growing and the time would soon come when they would need to fight against it, she feared that it would come before they were all ready.

She only had a few more interviews today and should be finished by this afternoon. She hadn't taught any of her classes in this time, leaving work to be completed and one of her seventh years to supervise. She hoped that none of the other students would give her any trouble later, the Marauders were always eventful enough without anyone else adding to that.

* * *

Even though the other Houses had all finished their careers interviews by now, the Slytherins were still having theirs even into the next week. The reason for this wasn't that there were more of them, or that each of theirs were taking longer than the other students' had done. Their Head of House, Professor Slughorn, had refused to miss any classes to do the interviews other than his sixth and seventh years as they were the only ones he trusted enough to leave alone during the practicals without blowing something up or stealing from the supplies while he wasn't there. Because of this, he only had an hour or so each weekday to see his students and could only fit in a couple each day.

All last week he had had to put up with his fifth year classes being constantly disrupted and he was glad that he wouldn't have to deal with that again until next year. He had had to arrange to have purely theory lessons at that time as many of the students would not have had time to complete a practical and the Potions couldn't be left unfinished as they were too unstable. But having only theory to do for a whole week, only books to read and notes to make, had made the class rather poorly behaved. They were bored with this and had wanted something active to do themselves and if they couldn't find it in the work they would find it some other way, mainly be messing about and not getting much work done, so Slughorn was glad that his lessons could finally go back to normal.

Right now he only had a few more students to interview and was just making his way to his office after teaching his second years to do the next couple. He would normally be teaching his seventh years now, his NEWT classes were still quite small compared to his OWL classes but he had hopes that would start to change this year. He knew that Potions was now a required subject for a lot of courses for which it hadn't used to be, but he also hoped that some students would want to take it not because they had to for the course or job they wanted but because they enjoyed it and wanted to take it further. He always enjoyed teaching those students more because they _wanted_ to be there.

By the time Slughorn arrived at his office, Severus Snape was already there waiting for him, he must have either left his last class early or not had a class last period to have got there first as the classroom and office weren't that far apart. Snape was one of his best students, both in his subject and in his House, it disappointed him how far the Slytherin-Gryffindor (and the other Houses most of the time now) went. He knew that most of his students didn't deserve that attitude and so he was pleased that his two best fifth years could be friends even though they were in opposing Houses, perhaps they could act as an example to the other students though he knew this was unlikely.

Slughorn unlocked the door to his office and let them both in. Severus took a seat opposite his Professor. He had thought about this before they had been told about these interviews and although he didn't know exactly which job he wanted to do after Hogwarts, he did know which general field he wanted to go into and a few of the subjects he wanted to do. He watched as Slughorn got out a few documents, waiting for him to begin.

"First of all, do you have any idea about what career you want to go into? That will make the choice of NEWT subject simpler." Slughorn asked.

"Well, I want to do something in Potions, but I'm not really sure what." Slughorn looked pleased at this as he should, one of his best students was interested in continuing his subject even beyond NEWT level.

"Right. There are three main areas you could go into. Obviously there's the research and development side of it, you would mainly be helping to create new Potions and improve the effectiveness of already existing ones. There's also more of a retail side, working in an apothecary or privately, brewing Potions on request from customers. And teaching, of course. Which of those might interest you?"

"Either of the first two, I think." Severus replied, he definitely didn't want to go into teaching, that just didn't appeal to him at all. He'd rather actually be working to create something new rather than having to go over the same information year after year. "Actually, I'd prefer the research side."

Slughorn made a note of that. "At the end of seventh year, I can help you find a suitable placement. I still have contacts from when I used to work in that field myself so that should be no problem. Now, as for the subjects... Potions, obviously which should be no problem at all given your standard of work. Herbology also comes in useful a lot of the time when sourcing your own ingredients and finding new ones, so that as well," Slughorn continued, scanning the sheet in front of him to identify the best subjects to continue with. "Employers typically look for more academic subjects so I would recommend Arithmancy and Charms which are also useful when developing new Potions. You won't need History or Divination, so you can chose your last two subjects out of the other three you're currently doing."

"I'd like to continue with Transfiguration and Defence then." Severus replied. He did also enjoy Ancient Runes, the other subject of the three, but not as much as the others he had chosen and he also couldn't see it being that useful to him in the future so had decided not to take it.

Professor Slughorn made a note of these subjects on the evaluation form. Later the Heads would have to submit these to the Headmaster so that next year's timetable could be drawn up so that all of the sixth years could attend all of their chosen classes without any clashes and in preparation for the summer when the students' letters would be sent out with the equipment they needed on them. It was also a good way to motivate the students to do well in their exams, by focusing their attention soon before they took them on what they could achieve if they got the grades they needed, instead of the exams just being a series of questions at the end of the year.

Once he had done this, Slughorn dismissed his student. They had gone over everything that they had needed to and had even finished earlier than he had expected. He was pleased that one of his students, especially one of his House, wanted to pursue his subject even after finishing at Hogwarts, it meant a lot to him that he had inspired someone to want to achieve even more in the subject and it showed that his teaching was actually getting through to his students. He had left his job and started teaching because he enjoyed the subject and wanted to promote it to the younger generations and now he was pleased that he had succeeded with one of his best students. It was things like that that made teaching worthwhile.


	9. Chapter 9

All of the fifth years' interviews were now over and the Easter holidays had begun. They now had two weeks completely free from classes and during this time they were strongly encouraged to get on with their revision, though not all of them were taking this advice.

Most of the fifth year Gryffindors were staying at Hogwarts for the holidays which was a quite unusual occurrence as most of them normally took this opportunity to visit the family they hadn't seen in months and to get away from school for a while. But this year, most of them had taken advantage of the fact that the Common Room would be mainly empty and quiet, full only of themselves and the seventh years revising for the exams and the other years unwilling to disturb them, in order to prepare for their OWL exams.

The worry about their future lives after they had left Hogwarts in a couple of years' time had mostly calmed down since the last of the interviews and was now mostly translated into anxiety about the upcoming exams. However, not everyone was using their free time wisely.

"Have you two done any revision at all?" Remus asked James and Sirius as they sat in the Common Room one afternoon in the holidays. That morning they had done some more work on the map, they were making some progress with getting it to display names as well as moving dots, but only on the condition that they spend the afternoon preparing for the exams and so far – nothing. In fact, Remus didn't think that he'd seen them revising at all this year, didn't they want to pass their exams?

"No!" replied Sirius, sounding shocked as if he couldn't understand why anyone would be revising already. "We've still got months left to go."

"Only _two_ months. And even that's not really enough to cover five years worth of work." Seeing that they still didn't seem concerned, as if they had all the time in the world, Remus continued, "Do you think that you'll last long in Auror training if you can't keep to deadlines or even remember what you've already learnt? There will be regular assessments, you know, and if you don't do well enough on them they won't keep you on."

"Deadlines? We still have two months left still. There's no point doing it all now or we'll just forget it again before the exams." James answered, "we've still got plenty of time."

Remus gave up trying to persuade them, if threats of being kicked out of training didn't motivate them, he couldn't think of anything that would. "Well could you at least help Peter?" he continued, quieter, "He's really struggling and I'm busy with this," he gestured to his own work, "it won't take long."

The others grudgingly agreed to this, not wanting to spend their holidays doing any work at all, and their Professors had given them all relatively little homework, saying that they should use the time for revision instead, but what was the point of wasting all of their precious free time when they had so much better things to be getting on with?

Remus knew that they had only really agreed to do this to avoid another argument but he hoped that at least this way they would get some revision done, and Peter really did need the help.

* * *

Earlier, while they had been working on the map, Sirius and James had discussed sneaking out to Hogsmeade during the holidays. The staff weren't paying as much attention to them as they usually were for the rest of the year as they were all busy writing the exams for the other years, so now would be the best time for it. The truth was that if they had all gone home and then arranged to meet up they could have gone out a lot more, but Sirius didn't want to spend any more time with his so-called family than he absolutely had to. He knew that last year Dumbledore had written to them to inform them of what had happened. Obviously not the whole story, or anything near it, but enough that he _really_ didn't want to go back until he absolutely had to.

Earlier in the week there had been another news story in the Daily Prophet about a family that had all been murdered. This family had also been a mix of pure blood and muggleborn and their young children had been killed as well. This was worrying many of the students of Hogwarts, and was another reason why Sirius preferred to stay at Hogwarts rather than go home. He knew that the rest of his family had always believed in pure blood superiority and how they shouldn't associate with those "lower" than themselves, but to have to listen to them talk about all these families that had been killed recently as though it was a good thing, to be supported, was more than he could put up with.

Of course, the holidays were also a time for fun, a time when they could all enjoy themselves. In previous years, they had always taken advantage of these times to work on their various _extra-curricular_ projects and he had hoped that this year would be the same. But most of the time Remus and Peter just wanted to revise now and they had only spent a few hours working on the map this week. Even though he did feel guilty about it, he was quite looking forward to the next full moon. It would only be the second one that they had all spent together and after the initial awkwardness last month, he had quite enjoyed it. It was just a completely different experience, being Padfoot, a time when he didn't have to think about his family, the exams and his future or the recent spate of murders. He was pleased to be able to do something to help Remus after all that he had done last year and was relieved that all of their hard work and practice had paid off finally.

In all his previous years at Hogwarts, Sirius had always left his revision, if he did any at all, to the last minute and that had always worked out for him. He was still here and doing well in his classes, but he supposed that this year was different after all. He really did need to get into those NEWT classes if he wanted to get into the program and escape from his family's reputation. Perhaps Remus had a point about starting to revise early, he might start that too. Just not quite yet, maybe later.

* * *

It was now nearing the end of the holidays and the school library was full of fifth and seventh years frantically trying to get one last bit of revision done before classes started again. Lily and Severus had been meeting in the library most days of the holiday so far. They had begun by meeting outside on the grounds instead as the weather was nice enough now, but since those in younger years that had stayed at school had practically been kicked out of their Common Rooms, they had also come out here and therefore they were frequently disturbed. After having tried that for a day or so, they had moved back inside, they both wanted to use this time to do as much revision as possible, recognising the importance of these exams in determining whether they would be able to have the futures they wanted.

They had both decided to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays firstly because they thought that doing revision there would be easier especially with the resources available to them there and with others in their class there to work with if they needed to, but also because neither of them wanted to go back home to their families if they didn't have to, preferring to spend the time here with their friends.

They usually spent one day on a subjects that they both studied as they took mostly the same subjects even though they weren't in the same class for a lot of them. But after they had finished those for the time being, they were left with the subjects they did on their own, which created problems if they needed help.

Today, Lily was revising for Astronomy, going over all the charts she would need to be able to recreate during the exam, leaving Severus to get on with Ancient Runes, which he was having a bit of trouble with.

"Do you understand this passage?" He asked her, indicating a section of the text book. Lily put down her quill and scanned through it, thinking that perhaps it was just something to do with the wording that was confusing. But, no, this was pretty in depth stuff and she had never studied the subject at all before so had no idea what it meant.

"No, why don't you ask someone in your class? Someone must have stayed for the holidays." She replied. After reading the text book, she had no idea why Severus had asked her instead.

"Who? One of the other Slytherins?" He scoffed, he doubted that any of his House members that could help him would. He was not well liked in Slytherin because of his friendship with Lily. According to them, it was bad enough that she was a Gryffindor without considering her parentage as well. They shared the class with the Gryffindors, but he could hardly ask any of them either.

Lily thought about this for a moment before coming up with an idea. "Isn't Remus Lupin in your class? You could ask him, you got on well enough working on that project for Slughorn."

Severus looked doubtful, they had worked together then because they had to but to actually ask to spend more time together was something different. "Am I supposed to just go and ask him now? I'm sure that the others will find that very amusing."

Lily sighed, he always became so defensive whenever the Marauders were mentioned though she noticed that he had acknowledged that Remus would not find his request amusing. That, at least, was some progress. "No, you don't need to do this topic right now, do you?" Severus shook his head. "So just wait until your next lesson. None of the others do Ancient Runes either so he'll need someone to revise with as well."

Severus still looked sceptical so Lily continued, "The worst that can happen is that he says no. Just ask him." Lily then picked up her quill again and went back to work, if he didn't take her advice now then it would be his own fault if he did badly this summer, she had done all she could.

Lily did have a good point, Severus thought, he did need to get this sorted out before the exams and, after the first week or so, working together on their project hadn't been that bad. He supposed that he could ask the Professor for help instead but he didn't want to seem like he was an idiot, especially this close to the end of the year. It really did seem to be the best solution, even if Lupin didn't go along with it he would be unlikely to tell the others about it, so really he didn't have anything to lose. But he would definitely wait until their next Ancient Runes lesson together, he didn't want anyone else to find out about this yet.

* * *

The two weeks of holidays were now over and the students who had left school had now all returned. Lessons had started up again with the Professors almost frantically trying to cover everything before the OWL and NEWT exams, as well as preparing their own exams for the other years. This meant more stress for most of the fifth and seventh years who now had to juggle their revision with their schoolwork with the exams quickly approaching. But it wasn't all bad for everyone.

The Marauders were currently stuck in History of Magic with the Ravenclaws, listening to Binns drone on about various Goblin rebellions and other events of no interest to them. Instead of facing the boredom of actually paying attention to the lesson and taking notes as he saw most of the Ravenclaws, Remus and Evans doing, Sirius thought back over the past week after the holidays had ended. Only a few days ago, they had spent their second full moon together since the three of them had finally succeeded with their Animagus transformations, and compared to a month ago, this time was a lot more enjoyable for all of them. They had learned from their past mistakes and got a lot of sleep in the days beforehand as they had classes the morning after, with McGonagall. They didn't want to make anyone suspicious of them and if they did McGonagall may well put it all together, being an Animagus herself.

The night had not been as awkward as the last time as Moony already knew them and they knew what to expect. Even with all the training they had done before the last time, it still felt like they were going in unprepared but that was better now. They had also followed Remus and Madam Pomfrey in and waited in the tunnel until after sunset, they knew that most of the damage had been done last month when Moony had been alone before they turned up, so this way they hoped to minimise any pain or injury although through the course of the night they knew that they would all come out a little the worse for wear.

They had stayed inside the Shrieking Shack all night again, but it was becoming too cramped too stay in there all the time. By the time a few hours had passed, they had all felt the desire to leave but this was really something they needed to talk about and plan first rather than just doing it on a whim. So after they had gone back to the castle the next morning, the three of them discussed it and had agreed to talk to Remus about it later, days later, as they didn't want him to overreact or reject their plan without even considering it, which he was likely to do if they asked him straight after the full moon as he had when they had first told him of their intentions of becoming Animagi. So they would wait.

But before they had even made their way back to the castle that morning, it had almost been over already. The sun had barely risen and Remus had only just transformed back when they had heard footsteps from inside the tunnel coming their way. What was Madame Pomfrey doing there already? She didn't normally get there that quickly. After they realised that she was there already, they begun to panic – they had left the Invisibility Cloak by the entrance to the tunnel. What if she saw it? Or _them_? They might have been able to explain away the Cloak, but if she saw them there it would all be over, the staff would work it out and they would be in so much trouble. So they ran, as quickly and quietly as they could, to a room further away from the entrance, hoping that it would be enough and that Pomfrey would just get Remus and go without looking around at all.

They had watched what was happening through the keyhole of the door they were hiding behind and had sighed with relief when Pomfrey finally left without noticing them. They had waited there for a while before leaving themselves, not wanting her to see them on the way back after the castle after she hadn't seen them in here.

They all made their way back to the castle without further incident and then went to Transfiguration after having their breakfast, managing to stay awake and alert even though they were all still a little tired. They had gone to see Remus at lunch that day and he had agreed with them that the night had gone better than last month as he felt a lot better already, in fact he was able to leave that afternoon and go back to classes the next morning, a lot earlier than normal, already caught up on the work he had missed. Sirius hoped that the staff didn't look too much into this, most of them didn't know enough about the subject to suspect them of anything and hopefully the rest would just assume it was because the nights were getting shorter now that it was spring.

Beforehand, Sirius had been feeling a little guilty about looking forward to the night of the full moon, but now that he had seen how much this helped Remus compared to previous years, he no longer felt bad about having some fun at the same time. They would all have to talk to Remus about possibly leaving the Shack in future months, but it would have to wait a few days, for now he would leave it alone, he didn't want any more arguments.


	10. Chapter 10

Two weeks had passed since that full moon and Remus was now making his way to the library. The others had tried to convince him the other day that they should all leave the Shack during future full moons. He didn't know how they could possibly think that that was a good idea, the safety issues alone... So he had immediately told them that it wouldn't be happening, but he was sure that they would keep trying to persuade him as they had when they had first decided to become Animagi. But in that case, they were only putting themselves at risk and he could make sure that they were ready first. With this, it would be completely out of his control, out of all of their control, and there was no telling of what could go wrong or who could be hurt. It was just too risky, they would have to make do with staying inside.

Remus was still a little annoyed and angry with them for suggesting it so he hadn't told them where he was going. Earlier in the week, after one of their Ancient Runes lessons, Snape had asked him if he wanted to meet to revise the subject as he was having a little trouble with it. Remus had been glad of the offer, he usually found it helpful to revise with someone else, if only to get a different view or way of understanding the topic, but as none of his friends studied Ancient Runes he had been forced to do it alone. A few of the girls in Gryffindor were in his class as well, but he hardly knew them at all and wouldn't be able to ask for their help or time. At least Snape actually wanted to revise unlike James and Sirius who still hadn't even started to do so.

The library was much busier than when they had been working on their Potions project, but Remus was still able to find Snape quickly, sitting at one of the desks near the Restricted Section, away from the entrance. They had agreed to meet in here as it would be easier to find one another and they would be less likely to be disturbed here than if they had met somewhere else, such as outside or in an empty classroom. Here, everyone was now only concerned about their own work and exams and they knew that Madam Pince did not tolerate disruptive behaviour, especially while everyone was revising before the exams so there wouldn't be anyone there who would even notice they were working together, let alone gossip about it which neither of them wanted. This was only about passing their exams.

"Sorry I'm late, I was caught up in something and didn't realise the time." Remus apologised as he took a seat at the desk. It wasn't just an excuse, James and Sirius had been doing some more work on the map and, although they had said that it would be finished soon as they had almost worked out why the moving dots weren't also displaying the names of the people they represented and fixed the problem, he had been trying to get them to stop working on it and finally start revising. The exams were just over a month away now and they still hadn't begun to take them seriously enough. The map could always wait until next year, there was no real rush to get it done _now_, but if they left their revision for that long, they wouldn't get into their NEWT classes and they would regret it then. Remus just didn't know what else he could do to convince them.

"That's alright, I had some work to do anyway." Snape replied and even after having spent hours working together, Remus was always still a little surprised by how reasonable he was being, especially given their history. "Shall we get started?"

Remus nodded and removed the notes and books he had brought with him from his bag. "I brought my notes from the last two years as well, in case we need them." Then, feeling that it would be best to start with what they weren't as confident with rather than go through everything chronologically, he asked, "What were you having trouble with earlier?"

Snape flipped through the pages of his textbook until he found the correct page then turned it around to show the Gryffindor. "I don't understand what this passage here means," he said, pointing it out, "I've looked through my notes and the rest of the chapter but it's not explained any differently there either."

Remus read through the page, this had also been problematic for him earlier in the year but he had gone to ask the Professor to explain it at the time, assuming that he had missed this in one of the lessons he had been absent from because of the full moon. However, he had been told that the textbook had been written when everyone had had to study Ancient Runes before OWL level and had not been updated since the subject had become optional at higher level and therefore assumed they already knew some things that they hadn't learnt yet. Professor Sanner had said that he had tried to remember to cover these points in more detail in class but had forgotten on this occasion. Once explained, it seemed it was simply talking about the order the Runes needed to be in if more than one were being used at one time in order to be the most effective, something they hadn't yet studied.

Remus had assumed that Sanner would go over it with the whole class soon after that and when that didn't happen he had just thought that it would be covered at some point before the exams but he had soon forgotten all about it. Compared to what else had been happening at the time, the intricacies of Ancient Runes didn't seem at all important. He started to explain it as well as he could but, in doing so, found that he couldn't remember it at all well. He would need to revise this too and they might as well both do it now, maybe going through it with someone else would help him to remember it later.

"I can't remember what the order is," Remus continued after he had explained that that was what the passage referred to, "I wrote it down somewhere in my notes, let me just try and find it." As Remus quickly searched through his notes, he tried to remember what else they had been studying around that time. But, try as he might, he just couldn't remember. He knew that it had been around the beginning of this year so it had to be about two-thirds of the way through his notes. Going directly to this point he soon found what he needed.

"'When using multiple Runes, write the offensive ones first from strongest to weakest, then the defensive from weakest to strongest. For example, tiwaz for victory in combat, uruz for strength then kaunan for illumination and thurisaz for protection.'" Remus read aloud from his notes, moving the page so that they could both see it. There were a few more examples here and after reading them through Remus looked back at the textbook, it made a lot more sense now. He thought it likely that no-one else had asked Sannen about this and he had simply forgotten about it. It wasn't even that difficult, just one of those little details you simply had to learn, which there were quite a lot of in Ancient Runes.

* * *

When he had finally worked up the courage to ask Lupin for help after one of their classes last week, Severus had been grateful that Lupin had accepted his offer to study together instead of laughing in his face and proceeding to tell the whole school just how pathetic he was. But Lupin just wasn't like that, the others, well Black and Potter anyway, were but Lupin had seemed pleased about the arrangement as well. Lily was probably right and he had no-one else to study with either but it had still gone quite well considering.

He read through the notes Lupin had brought with him and was pleased that the topic finally made sense. After all that, it had been pretty straightforward in the end, probably too basic for the book to go over as it had apparently been written years before when everyone had already learnt the basics before they got to this point. Maybe they should have found some first and second year textbooks from then but it was too late for that now though if they had any more problems there would probably be some of them in here for them to find and use.

For the next couple of hours they went over a few of the other topics that they were both having trouble with, making progress when they both worked at it together. After they had finished with most of these, they started going over the entire course chronologically, getting through the first few months of what they had done in third year before it started to get late and they would have to leave for dinner or else miss it entirely.

It had been a very productive session and Severus was sure that they had covered more material than he could have done alone, and they still had over two years of work to get through in just over a month. "We still have all the rest to go through." He said, indicating the pile of textbooks and notes on the desk. "Do you want to do this again?" Given how much easier the work had been to understand today, they would probably get through the rest of the course in good time for the exams if they repeated this session.

Lupin seemed a bit shocked by this, probably thought that that was it once they had gone through that problematic section, but he didn't look unhappy about being asked. "Alright. The same time next week then?"

"Fine. You do Arithmancy too, don't you?" When Lily had been trying to convince him to study with Lupin, she had mentioned that he did Arithmancy as well and after he had agreed to it she had suggested that if it went well the three of them should study the subject together as well. Given how much they had done today it seemed to be a sensible idea.

Lupin seemed confused for a moment, "How did you... oh, never mind." He started to ask then, obviously realising, stopped. "Did you want to revise that as well? I didn't know that you did Arithmancy."

"If that's alright with you." Severus had Arithmancy with the Hufflepuffs and none of them would be any help here. Although his marks in class were generally high, he would need to be able to do well on the day of the exam to get into the NEWT class and he needed a good NEWT grade at the end of it to be able to get the best jobs available to him. Even though he had already started his revision, there were still some topics that he was a little unsure on or had simply not had time to get to yet and had mostly forgotten. "Lily would probably be joining us for that."

"Yes, that would be good. I don't have anyone to revise that with either. Will that be at the same time?" Lupin replied.

"I'll have to ask her, but probably. We can fit in whatever we need to do for either subject then." Severus didn't know if Lily would be free then but at this time of the year there couldn't be much else occupying her time. "I'll let you know if it's at a different time when I know."

By that point they were ready to leave so they made their way to the exit and headed towards the Hall. Usually at this time, the library would be virtually empty but now there were plenty of students still there, having probably left their revision too late and now trying to make up for it.

"Are you going to continue Ancient Runes next year?" Lupin asked just after they had passed through the doors out of the library. "I forgot to ask earlier."

"No, I needed to do other subjects more than this one." Severus answered, somewhat surprised that Lupin was in the least bit interested. "What about you?"

Lupin shook his head, "It's too specialised and not that many things actually require it, so no."

As they made their way through the castle, they discussed which subjects they _were_ doing next year and found out that they were doing five of the same subjects. The only difference was that Lupin would be doing Muggle Studies while Severus would be studying Herbology instead. Lupin's subjects didn't appear to be aimed at any particular career so Severus assumed that he was trying to keep his options open, which was probably the best option now that he thought about it given what he had learnt while doing all that research last year.

They separated before they reached the entrance hall, there were lots of people here, going in and out of the Great Hall and they didn't really want to be seen together by anyone yet as everyone would probably assume there was more to it than there actually was. It was just about passing the exams, Severus told himself, nothing else. But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to it now.

* * *

Remus made his way over to the Gryffindor table where the others already sat. Although they had been able to work together at the beginning of the year, he was still surprised at how well their study session today had gone. Aside from getting through a lot of the course material, it now seemed like what had happened last October never had and, more than that, it was like all the animosity between them all was never there in the first place. That was only when the others weren't there, but even when they were, it wasn't _quite_ as bad as it had used to be – they had apparently listened to him but not agreed with him entirely.

Despite their original awkwardness and reluctance to work together, it was now no different to when Remus would have to work with any other student from another House in one of his classes like last year in Divination when he and a Ravenclaw had been put together for a few months when taking each other's readings. But no, now that he thought about it, there was a difference. After everything that had happened between them lately and with being forced to spend time together, there now seemed to be a sort of understanding between them. It was probably because Snape _knew_ now and he didn't have to constantly be making up excuses or worrying about what would happen if he worked it out. It was... comfortable.

"Where were you all afternoon?" Sirius asked when Remus sat down with them, trying to keep his voice light and casual but still sounding slightly accusatory.

"Just in the library, revising. There's too many people in the Common Room, I couldn't concentrate." Remus replied while the others looked as if he could have told them that earlier without just disappearing. He didn't want to tell them that he hadn't been there alone yet. He didn't know exactly how they'd react but he knew it wouldn't be pleasant, being forced to work together by their Professor had been one thing but in this case they had both chosen to be there and he knew they wouldn't be happy about it. He sometimes wondered how Lily and Snape could still be friends amid all this rivalry and animosity between the two Houses and he did admire them for it. He supposed that it was because they had known each other before coming to Hogwarts so didn't base judgements of each other on their House alone as many students here did. Perhaps that was all that had ever caused the hostility between them all rather than any truly justifiable reason.

* * *

The week after the revision session quickly passed and it was soon time for the next one. They had agreed to meet in the library again so Lily made her way over there a few minutes before she was supposed to get there. She had looked around the Common Room before she left but hadn't seen Remus there, though the other three were, so assumed that he had left before her. She knew that they would both be studying Ancient Runes first without her before they all began on Arithmancy so she had brought some of her Astronomy notes to look over as well while she was waiting as neither of them did that subject. She would also need to make use of the practical revision sessions made available this month when the class would have free use of the telescopes if they wished, under supervision from their Professor, but she had started her revision months ago and therefore was quite confident about most of the exams. Still, a little more revision now couldn't hurt.

On the way there she ran into Severus so they made their way to the library together. When they got there, Severus led her to a table near the back of the library where Remus already sat, organising all the Ancient Runes notes and books he had brought with him as well as some that looked to be borrowed from here in case they ran into trouble again, presumably where they had worked last week. It was quite out of the way probably so that they wouldn't really be noticed or disturbed by anyone in here, not that many of them would even care, they were focusing on only themselves, but they still didn't want to attract any more attention than was necessary. Last weekend Lily had overheard Remus tell his friends that he had been studying alone so he obviously didn't want them to find out from anyone else. He probably wouldn't even tell them himself unless he had to, Lily thought, they both knew that they would overreact if they found out about this. They were infuriating, especially Potter. How did he expect to ever have a chance with her when he kept acting this way? He should just give up now and leave them both alone, hopefully Remus would help to convince him if these sessions went on.

She and Severus sat down at the desk with Remus, Severus next to him so that they could work easily from the same resources and her opposite them, getting out her notes to work from. After they had all greeted each other and exchanged the usual pleasantries, they all got down to work.

Lily began by trying to concentrate on her own work and get through as much as she could as there _was_ only a month until the exams, after all. But she kept being distracted by the other two. Not because they were discussing the material, which they were, or because they were making too much noise, but because of the way they were behaving around each other. Gone was the attitude they had had when she had last seen them work together, months ago, of just getting through the work as quickly as possible to minimise the time they would have to spend together. Now, it was more like they were actually getting on with each other and they had both actually decided to be here so there was no resentment at being forced together as she supposed there must have been in the beginning. It seemed that more than just studying together, which they didn't actually _need_ to do any more as the issue had been resolved, they were enjoying working together on this.

Even though she had suggested this, Lily was still surprised at how well this was going. She had expected for them to just meet once, go through the problem and leave, maybe after a little more studying, but no more than that. Last weekend, when Severus had asked her if she wanted to study with them both, she had been surprised that they had made a regular thing of it. But she was also pleased that, even after everything that had happened between them, they wanted to spend more time together. Usually she would have to study Arithmancy by herself or with only Severus as none of her friends in Gryffindor did it and, although she did enjoy studying with him, she did also want to spend time with other people too.

She also thought it would help them to start seeing people as themselves rather than just as members of their Houses and succumbing to the common antagonism between Gryffindor and Slytherin in particular. She knew that Severus already did that with her, but that was because they had already known each other before they were Sorted, but the same didn't apply for the rest of her House. She could tell that the two of them were making progress on that with each other and hopefully, given time, that would include the other students too.

She had also noticed that over the past couple of months Potter and Black had toned down their attacks on Severus, now only using verbal insults, if anything, when they would have resorted to violence in the past. Lily wondered if this was because they knew that Severus _knew_ about Remus and therefore didn't want to push him so far that Remus would be at risk or because Remus had asked them to do so. Maybe it was both, but given how reluctant he had been to even tell them that they had been studying together, she thought it unlikely that this would be the case. Perhaps they were just finally growing up after all.

* * *

An hour or so had now passed since they had all arrived and they all seemed to have made good progress with their revision, but they still hadn't moved onto Arithmancy yet and if they do so didn't soon they wouldn't get much done at all.

"How are you getting on?" Lily asked the others, slightly impatient now. She had known that they would be revising Ancient Runes first without her but she had expected to have moved onto Arithmancy by now, she had almost finished going through the notes she had brought with her on Astronomy. She supposed that she could always find a book in here to revise from but she would prefer to move on.

She saw the other two exchange a look, probably thinking that they should finish soon. Remus quickly flipped a few pages of the textbook they were using to see how much they had to get through. "We only have two more pages of this section to get through, then we can start on Arithmancy if you want. It should only be a few minutes."

"Alright." Lily replied. Even if, after this year, everything went back to the way it had always been between Severus and the Marauders at least they would both do well on their exams. She didn't believe that that would happen but at least they would get that out of these study sessions, hopefully they would get along better as well. She could tell they had already made a lot of progress on that point so she didn't think that that would be all. The hostility between them had disappeared when they had had to work together on potions at the beginning of the year, but it was more than that now, they seemed to both enjoy working together. Lily couldn't help but hear their conversation and although they had started by only discussing the subject, they soon began to talk about other things, as friends would though she didn't think it was at that stage yet.

While they were finishing the chapter they were working on, Lily got out her Arithmancy notes and textbook and found the section she wanted to work on first, reading through it while she waited for them. After a few minutes, the others did the same and they started to get on with the topic she had chosen out. It felt like they only doing what she chose to make up for the fact that they had kept her waiting, but the important thing to her was that they got through it.

* * *

At first, Remus had been a bit uneasy about studying with Lily as well, he didn't really know her besides James' infatuation and their classes together and thought that he might feel left out with both of them there as they were such good friends. But, if anything, he and Snape seemed to be leaving _her_ out. It wasn't really their fault, she didn't do the subject, but still when she asked, he had felt obliged to move on to Arithmancy, they didn't have that much left to do on Ancient Runes anyway. They first started by going through any topic which they were having trouble with and after that, had taken turns asking the other two random questions on the whole subject, seeing who could answer either the quickest or with the most correct answer. At first this had seemed a bit daunting as the others were very good, but then Remus realised that it was actually a fun way to revise what could sometimes be a boring subject. The competitiveness of it kept them all interested and they did get through a lot of material this way. It was also helpful in identifying their weak spots too, if anyone either couldn't answer a question or didn't understand the answer someone else gave, they would go through that topic together until they could all do it.

He did enjoy spending time with the two of them. Perhaps as much as with James, Peter and Sirius, but it was different. He wouldn't be able to do this with the others, he would have a hard enough time getting them to start their revision in the first place and it would be nearly impossible to convince them to spend their weekends on it. And even if they did spend the time on it, the three of them would have to keep helping Peter out. Remus didn't blame him, it wasn't his fault but it was still nice to work with people on the same level as himself. It was different working with Lily and Severus, they could all just get on with the work and not have to worry about leaving anyone else behind. It made a change to be able to work with others who had shared academic interests as they were all doing mostly the same subjects for their NEWTs. It wasn't that he preferred them to being part of the Marauders, he felt that he needed them both, he wanted both.

* * *

It was almost time for them to all leave for the day so they all began to pack their things away. Lily had enjoyed their session this afternoon and wanted to do it again, but she remembered that Remus and Severus had been meeting each Saturday and, as next Saturday would be the day after the full moon, she didn't know if Remus would be up to it. She couldn't think of another reason why she would want to meet on a different day without revealing that she knew, which she didn't want to do yet. She'd let them sort it out. "When are we meeting again?" she asked. "And do you still need to do more on Ancient Runes or can we just focus on Arithmancy next time?"

"Well, we've done most of what we needed to do for Ancient Runes so we can just do Arithmancy next time, right?" Remus replied, looking over at Severus for confirmation. Lily noticed that Remus looked a bit nervous when she asked when she asked about their next session, he of course knew what next Friday was and was probably now thinking of an excuse to change the day that she wouldn't question. This almost made her want to tell them that she already knew, but she held back for now, the time wasn't right. It was just before the exams and none of them needed any more stress right now.

Severus nodded in agreement that they could just do the one subject next week, then to her surprise, solved the problem. "Can we do this on Sunday instead? Slughorn wants to see me on Saturday about my careers interview. Something about trying to sort out which placement I want in good time as there aren't many available."

Lily was so relieved that the issue had been resolved that she didn't question him about this even though he hadn't told her about this before. She noticed Remus relax again as she agreed to this and regretted that it had to be this way. Although Lily doubted that Severus was telling the truth about Slughorn, he was. Well, mostly. They weren't supposed to meet until after the exams as the Professor didn't want to get in the way of his revision, but he thought she would believe this excuse as it was partially true.

From the way that Remus reacted to this, seeming grateful and relieved rather than surprised or as if he was lucky to avoid an explanation himself, Lily realised that Remus knew that Severus knew about him. This changes things, she hadn't expected this at all. She had thought that Severus had worked it out as she had, by putting together all the information available and coming up with the only logical conclusion. But she didn't believe that if that was the case Severus would just tell Remus that he knew, he had found out months ago, long before they had ever had to work together in Potions so he would have had no reason to do so. And even now, when they were starting to get on, she didn't think he would admit to knowing for much the same reasons that she hadn't. Maybe sometime in the future but not _now_. All of that seemed to suggest that Remus had been there when he had found out or had discovered this some other way. Maybe it had something to do with the Marauders falling out last year, it had happened at around the same time. But what could have possibly happened?

Whatever it was, she supposed it didn't really matter now, they had all made up and now these two were actually getting along well. But from this she could tell that Severus was trying to make it easier for Remus without anyone else finding out. He actually cared about Remus and even seemed to want to be friends with him which may well turn out to be problematic given who else Remus was friends with but if you ignored them it seemed to be a good idea. She could tell that there definitely wasn't any dislike still between them any more and they both seemed to enjoy spending time together now. Perhaps she would talk to Severus about it later but for now they all had to leave. It would have to wait.

* * *

The next Sunday, Remus made his way to the library as they had arranged. He was grateful that he hadn't had to make an excuse as to why he couldn't go yesterday, he didn't want to make Lily suspicious. He was sure that she was clever enough to work it out if she did and he didn't want anyone else to find out. Too many people had already.

In fact, he probably could have made it yesterday as the only real problem he had had was the tiredness, but after having slept for most of the morning and early afternoon he would have been ready to leave by the time they normally met if he had had to. Still, he was glad to be able to spend the rest of the day with the other Marauders as they had had to tell him what had happened the night before as he still barely remembered anything. That night had been the first time that they had left the Shrieking Shack.

The others had been trying to convince him to let them do this for almost a month and, after ignoring their requests at first, he had allowed them to do it but only on the condition that they all learn a series of spells that they could use to stop him if they needed to. Once he had told them this, they had spent practically all their free time practising, knowing that he was serious about what he had said. Remus would have felt bad about leaving them less time for revision but he knew that they wouldn't have done any anyway. It was only in the middle of last week that he had been satisfied that they could all do it if they needed to. After that, he had made them all promise not to hesitate if they were in a situation where he needed to be stopped as soon as possible. He didn't want anyone to get hurt because they didn't want to hurt their friend.

When he woke up on Saturday in the Hospital Wing, they had told him what had happened. Apparently it had all gone fairly well. They had left the Shack and roamed around the forest and the school grounds furthest from the castle. No-one else had been out there that they had seen, which also likely meant that they hadn't been spotted. If they ever were seen by a staff member or even a student, they would probably mention it to one of their teachers or even go directly to Dumbledore who would put it all together, and then it would be all over. But that hadn't happened, and the others told Remus that the only real problem they had was trying to get him back inside at the end of the night, but they had eventually managed it between them all before the sun rose. All in all, it had gone very well.

But what this also proved to Remus was that, if they all actually applied themselves and made the effort, they could learn new things quickly if they wanted to enough. Yesterday evening, because of this, he had tried again to get them to revise as there _were_ only two to three weeks until the exams began. He hadn't really expected them to listen to him this time but they had finally agreed to do some, if only because the proximity of the exams was making them realise that they would need to study now to be able to do the classes they needed to get into the training program they wanted to.

Walking through the library, he could see that Lily and Severus weren't sitting at their normal table, as it was occupied by someone else, though he knew that they were already here as Lily had left before him. Looking around, he spotted them at a different table, one closer to the entrance of the library, so went over to sit with them.

* * *

In their last Arithmancy lesson, Lily had asked for a copy of the syllabus from their Professor and had made copies of it for the others, they were all looking through it now. Their aim today was to go through this and identify which topics they needed to revise the most and go through those using their notes and textbooks, then to ask each other questions on any topic as they had last week.

While Lily was looking through and highlighting her copy, she heard Severus ask Remus if he was alright now and Remus reply in the affirmative. To her, this proved what she had been thinking earlier, that they actually cared about each other. Or, at least, that Severus did, she didn't really know about Remus yet as she didn't know him as well, but he didn't have to keep coming back, she was sure he was capable of learning the material on his own. They all were, but this was much more preferable to studying in silence on your own. Even so, she was convinced that they had the potential to become friends if they continued these sessions, just as long as the other Marauders didn't mess things up as they might want to do if they found out.

Once they had all finished identifying what they would need to go through today, or next week if there were a lot of topics, they compared them. They had mostly picked the same things so, although they wouldn't have too much to go through, it might take them longer as none of them were confident enough on it to explain to the others. They worked steadily through these for the next hour and a half until they had gone through them all.

By this time they were all more than ready to move on to the questions as that had been the most enjoyable part of their session last week. But this time, they all made the questions more difficult. At first, this wasn't intentional, it was just because they had gone through most of the easier topics last week as they were only just starting their revision and so had the other topics left now. But then, they began to try to make their own questions harder in order to catch the others out. Although this initially resulted in more incorrect answers, it was a good way to identify those areas that they had thought they knew well but actually didn't and as they went through every wrong answer, the number of incorrect answers gradually decreased until they were getting more right than wrong.

Even though they were learning a lot, it was still fun due to the format and they were able to just enjoy themselves, seeming to forget for a while all that had happened between them before. In fact, after a while of doing this, Lily noticed that the other two had started calling each other by their first names. She didn't think that they even realised that they were doing it, it probably just slipping out while they were concentrating on something else and just enjoying the moment. But even though they probably hadn't meant to say it, it showed that they were at least thinking of each other in those terms. By this point they all got on well together and she thought that it had passed the point of it just being about studying now, for all of them.

* * *

James had left the Common Room a few minutes ago and was making his way to the library. True to their word, he and Sirius had started their revision, joining Peter who was already doing it. They had started by going through their favourite, and usually best, subjects – Transfiguration and Defence. But after a while they had found that their notes on several of the topics were incomplete and they didn't have their textbooks from that year with them. So James had volunteered to go and find a book or two for them to use instead. He didn't mind the chance to get out of the Common Room for a while, besides Lily wasn't in there and he might run into her at the library if she was there.

But when he got to the library, he had to look around for a while to find the books he wanted as he didn't know where anything, other than the Restricted Section, was as he had hardly ever been in here, not for schoolwork anyway. And he didn't want to ask the librarian for help, it was bad enough that he had to come in here but if everyone knew that he had and that he couldn't even find a book on his own, that would be even worse. But as he walked past one of the aisles he caught a glimpse of red hair out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and turned to look in case it was _her_.

And it was. But who was that with her? Snape and... Remus? What was he doing here with them? He had told them that he would be studying on his own as he couldn't concentrate in the Common Room with everyone else in there. He had lied to them about what he was doing... again. They had promised not to do that any more, they could understand why he had had to lie to them the first time, but now?

They hadn't noticed he was here yet so he moved quietly to where he could still see them clearly but where they wouldn't be able to see him if they just glanced around, only if they were looking for someone there. How he wished he had brought the Invisibility Cloak with him when he had the chance, he wanted to know what they were talking about. He could go back for it now, but they might have already left by the time he got back as they had been here for a while already. This would have to do.

The three of them seemed to all be enjoying themselves, he saw, they were talking and laughing as they all studied. He was shocked to see that Remus was obviously here because he wanted to be and not because of some project from another subject that he had just forgotten about until he got here. How long has this been going on for? He could understand why someone would want to spend more time with Lily, but not Snape. And, come to think of it, why were _they_ spending time with Remus anyway, they hated the Marauders. Or, at least, they had appeared to, it wasn't so clear now.

But whatever the reason for this, the others deserved to know as well. So he slowly backed away from them, careful to make as little noise as possible as he didn't want them to know he was there. But he wasn't looking where he was going and backed straight into a stack of heavy books piled precariously on the edge of another table, knocking them all to the floor with a crash.

This alerted the three and they turned to see what had happened. James had just enough time to see their shocked faces before he got out of there and practically ran back to the Common Room to speak to the others as soon as possible.

* * *

Remus had been having a very enjoyable time with the other two until he had seen that James was there. His first reaction had been shock that James was even _in_ the library to begin with and had apparently listened to him about revising, but then he had realised that James had seen them all together. He hadn't planned to tell the others yet, in fact he hadn't really thought about when he would, he just knew that it would be after the exams, he didn't want any more stress or arguments when they were still to come. But James would be going to tell the others _right now_ and he had to be there. He knew that he wouldn't be able to stop James telling the others but he could at least explain his side of it and try to defend himself.

He hadn't wanted them to find out this way and found himself regretting that he hadn't told them straight away. After they had confronted him in second year they had all agreed to have no secrets from each other. They had promised and he had broken his. He had to get there _now_.

Remus quickly got all his things together. "I have to leave now, I'm sorry. Same time next week?"

"You haven't told them about this, have you?" Lily guessed, quite accurately, not answering his question. That could wait.

"No, not yet." Remus replied, "I'm sorry, I have to go now." And without waiting for a response, he took off after James back to the Common Room, he needed to speak to the others too.

* * *

In only a few minutes, James had arrived back at the Common Room. He spotted the others sitting across the room from him actually doing some revision for once, if only that had been all Remus was doing. He quickly made his way over to them, he was sure that Remus would have left soon after him and wanted to have this conversation as soon as possible.

"We need to talk." He told them bluntly, then looked around at all the other students who were much quieter than normal, when you would be able to have a conversation in here fairly privately. "Not here, upstairs." Then, without waiting to see if they were following him, he led the way up to their dormitory. The slightly confused and worried glance that Sirius and Peter shared went unseen by him.

When they had all climbed the stairs leading up and entered their room, James closed the door and remained standing as the others sat on their beds, waiting for him to tell them what was going on.

"What's this about?" asked Sirius after a moment, growing impatient of watching James pace across the room without talking to them. What could possibly be this important that it required their immediate attention? Well, whatever it was, James didn't seem too happy about it.

"It's about Remus." James answered simply, and annoyingly incompletely.

"What! What happened? Is he alright?" Sirius exclaimed. It must be bad if James wasn't telling them straight away, Sirius thought. Everything had been fine just this morning, what could have happened since then that they wouldn't have heard about before now? Sirius had been worried about Remus ever since what had happened in October even during the time when the others wouldn't acknowledge his existence at all, he wasn't happy that Snape had been let go without being Obliviated when he had found out about Remus as there was nothing that really prevented him from revealing this to anyone who would listen, but he supposed that Dumbledore thought it was just too dark to use on a student, whatever the circumstances. It anything had happened to Remus because of what he had done, he knew that he would never forgive himself. It had been bad enough the first time.

"It's nothing like that." James answered to Sirius' relief, and confusion. What else could it be?

"He's been lying to us again. I just found out." James continued, sounding incensed now. Although Sirius' initial thought on hearing this had been one of shock and outrage, he soon calmed down. The only other time Remus had lied to them, that they knew about, was before their second year and he had had a good reason to do so then. He would probably have one now too for whatever this was about, which James wasn't telling them. He was probably getting caught up thinking through whatever he had found out and getting angrier and angrier, judging by his expression, waiting for one of them to ask him. Sirius thought that whatever was going on, he should wait to hear Remus' side of things before making any judgements about it and any of them getting overemotional wouldn't help things. He didn't want there to be a rift between them again.

"Found out what?" Sirius asked, noticing James turn to look at him as if he had forgotten that the other two were still there. It was just as well that he had interrupted him now before he could get too carried away. This must be something major if it was affecting James like that, even in second year when they had worked it out he hadn't been like this.

"You know how he's been going to the library at lot recently?" James waited for the others to nod at this. "He says that he's been going alone, but that's not true."

Sirius was shocked by what James said, but not in the way James had obviously intended. He had expected it to be something more important than this. So what if Remus had been meeting someone to study with. Why was James making such a big deal of it? Unless he hadn't gone to the library to study after all. He might have started dating someone else now and just wanted a little privacy for now. Sirius couldn't blame him if this was the case, they would have received little privacy otherwise. But it was only a few weeks until the exams now, surely Remus wouldn't be doing anything other than revising now, especially this year with their OWLs being so important. So it couldn't be that, but what else was there?

Sirius gestured for James to continue, "So?"

"He's been meeting with Snape," James answered, "they've been _studying _together. And with Evans." He continued, the jealously evident in his voice. "I saw them in the library today."

"Maybe they were just given work to do together from another subject." Sirius replied, his mind trying to come up with a logical explanation even though he didn't believe this to be the case, none of their Professors would set them such extensive work this close to their OWLs, they hardly had any work outside of lessons now as they were expected to spend the time revising instead. Anyway, Remus would have told them if that had been it, he had for Potions.

"No, they all looked more than happy to be there."

Sirius was shocked by this revelation. It seemed that Remus had been meeting with Snape _voluntarily_. But why would he do that? He knew that they had had to work together for their Potions project earlier in the year but that was long over by now and they had no reason to meet. It sounded like this had been going on for a while now, James had said they had all seemed to be getting on, but how was that possible? Snape _knew_ and he hated the Marauders. Why would any of them want to do this? Why would Remus want to? Weren't they enough for him any more?

But even though his shock and confusion, Sirius remembered that he had intended to listen to Remus before he judged the situation. Even so, he couldn't think of what reason Remus might have for this, but still, he would wait and listen to Remus later. He didn't want anything to come between them again. So he would wait. He owed Remus that much at least.

* * *

Remus left the library and headed off after James who must be going back to the Common Room, that was where he had left the others earlier, he knew that James was going to get there before him but he still had to try to get there as soon as possible to minimise the damage caused and to try and explain himself before the others got too worked up about it. He would have been quicker getting back, but although it was a lot better than it had used to be, he had still not completely recovered from the full moon two nights ago.

So, by the time he got back, he couldn't see the others anywhere in the Common Room. Thinking that James must have taken them upstairs to talk more privately, Remus made his way up to their room. As he approached, he could hear their voices from inside. Luckily there was a charm on the door preventing someone outside from making out their words as they had often had conversations they really wouldn't want to be overheard in here.

But as he opened the door and went inside, they fell silent and just turned to look at him, waiting. He saw that, out of all of them, James seemed the most affected by the news. The others just sat there, perhaps they hadn't believed what James must have told them by now, or maybe they had but were still willing to let him explain. But now, after everything they had gone through together, he didn't want something like this to come between them. They had got through much more than this before, and this was fairly minor compared to what else had happened, but he knew the others would think it more important than he did. He knew they wouldn't like it, but hopefully they wouldn't try and stop it going on.

"Can I just explain?" Remus asked after no-one spoke for a moment. Peter and Sirius seemed to be willing to listen to him and gestured at him for him to continue, but James still seemed quite hostile. Remus thought he was being unreasonable about this, he understood that the others were all shocked but although he perhaps should have told them all sooner, he hadn't actually done anything wrong. It wasn't anything near the level of what Sirius had done last year and James hadn't been like this then. Remus hoped he could get through to him, get him to calm down first or he'd probably just get more and more bad tempered as it went on.

"Fine, but you'd better have a good reason." James answered irritably. By this point, Remus was close to losing his temper with him, he hadn't said anything over the years when the others had done things he hadn't been happy about. He had tried to encourage them to do some more work and revision but that had been it. What right did James have to do this to him now?

So after he had taken a few deep breaths to calm himself, Remus spoke to only the others, hoping that James would calm down and realise what he was acting like if he was ignored for a while and his outbursts didn't get any of their attention.

"We were just revising, I couldn't do it with any of you-" Remus started, but was interrupted before he could continue.

"But we've started now." Sirius cut in, as if to make sure that that fact wasn't forgotten amongst everything else that was going on. Remus had noticed that Sirius had been trying to make amends for what he had done, usually going along with what Remus wanted when they had a slight disagreement about something and now he was trying to make sure that Remus knew that he had actually started some revision, even this late, as Remus had been trying to get him to do. Remus hoped that this would help get someone on his side as even if Sirius didn't really agree with him he might act as though he did to avoid conflict. Hopefully that would get the others on board as well.

"Yes but you hadn't then and anyway, you don't do those subjects. I needed someone to study Ancient Runes and Arithmancy with, I don't know anyone else who does those and it was helpful to go through it with someone else." Which was true, if he had had to study those subjects alone, Remus wasn't sure that he'd understand the topics he had been having trouble with nearly as well as he did now. But he knew the others weren't focusing on his chances of passing the exams.

He had hoped that James would listen to his explanation, but he was obviously still fixated on another point. "But with Snape? He _knows_! Surely there must have been someone else, one of the Ravenclaws maybe, instead. Why would you ever want to work with him?"

Remus had had just about enough of this, he tried to keep calm but wasn't as successful this time. "I already told you that there wasn't anyone else if you would listen to me and Se- Snape has known for months now and he hasn't done anything yet, no-one else has found out. Doesn't that say something about him?" Remus hoped to get through to the others by using this logical approach, he had noticed that he had almost slipped up and corrected himself. He didn't think any of the others had noticed, he himself hadn't noticed until shortly before James turned up when, instead of focusing on answering the random questions as quickly as possible, he had still been reading about the answer to the last question and had been surprised to hear Severus call him by his first name. But he then realised that they had both been doing so for the last hour or so without noticing. He had been thinking of the Slytherin by his first name for a few weeks now and he supposed that it had just slipped out when they were both concentrating on other things so much. But he thought that that would be too much for the others to cope with right now. "And he asked me, by the way."

James had obviously considered the logic of what he had just said as he had calmed down somewhat now, but there was still something that hadn't been covered yet. "You still should have told us." He said, and although most of the anger had gone from his voice he still sounded quite accusatory.

"I know." Remus answered, he had thought about this earlier, but he hadn't felt able to tell them as he knew they would react this way when they found out, he hadn't felt like they needed to know yet, there wasn't really anything _to_ know, it was all being blown way out of proportion. Perhaps he should have told them himself before they found out like this as he could tell that they were also angry that he had concealed this from them, but it was too late now. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, I just didn't want you to react like this and I knew you would."

"How long has this been going on for?" Sirius asked, speaking up for the first time since Remus had got there, rather unusually as Sirius was _not_ the quiet one. He seemed to have been waiting for James to get all his questions out of the way rather than interrupt and aggravate the situation. He _had_ had the worst time of them all over the past few months of the previous year so would want to keep them all together perhaps more than the others did.

"About three weeks now." Remus answered honestly, relieved that the conversation had turned away from just accusing him and onto getting all the facts straight. "Just for revision." He added, knowing they would be more likely to understand if that was all they thought it was, they all knew how seriously he took the exams and if he had enjoyed spending time with the others, they didn't really need to know that right now. If they could cope with this, he would likely tell them another time.

But with this comment, it seemed that all of James' anger had returned. "It didn't seem like just revision to me." He said snidely.

Although Remus had been trying to stay calm and ignore all these contemptuous comments, this one pushed him over the edge. "Yeah, alright, I had some fun at the same time, so what? It's got nothing to do with you. You're just jealous because Lily won't talk to you!"

Silence. Remus had expected a retort after this, but there was nothing. He knew he'd gone too far with that last remark but he had just lost his temper.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, I'm just stressed about the exams and everything." It had also been the full moon only two nights ago but he didn't mention it, they all knew. Besides, stating it out loud as an excuse for his behaviour would be admitting how much control it had over him which he didn't want to do, especially so soon after they had gone over the realities of life after Hogwarts in his interview with McGonagall. They all knew how James felt about Lily and though they all thought of it as hopeless, they knew better than to tell James that, especially when their emotions were already running high.

James opened his mouth to respond, but Sirius was quicker, "Can we all just calm down? This isn't going to help anything." he said, trying to keep the peace. He wasn't too happy about what had been happening, but, unlike James, recognised that it didn't really have anything to do with him after he had recovered from his initial shock. He had been relieved that no-one had been hurt as he had feared when James had first said that he had needed to talk to them. "The exams are only a couple of weeks away, we should _all _be revising now if we want to get into the classes we need." Usually he avoided as much work as possible but he really wanted to get into the Auror training program and that was what he would need to do so he supposed he could spare a few hours for it. "And I don't know how well the charm on the door will hold up if we all keep shouting. It hasn't been tested for this and we don't want anyone to overhear us. Shouting and getting worked up about this isn't going to get us anywhere. OK?"

They all took a few minutes to calm down, what Sirius had said had made sense and as it was so unusual for him to take this role, it shocked them all just enough for them to pay attention.

Sitting down on his own bed finally, James now seemed more contemplative about the day's events. He supposed that he _had_ overreacted but he still wanted some answers. "Why didn't you tell us?" He asked quietly, knowing now that he thought about it that he wouldn't be able to stop Remus from continuing to do this and if he tried any more than he already had, he would just end up driving them all apart and he didn't want that to happen. He valued all of their friendships too much to allow that to occur, though he still felt a little hurt that Remus hadn't trusted them enough to tell them about it before they found out themselves.

"I knew you'd all overreact. It just wasn't that important, I didn't think I would need to yet." Remus explained, "I'll still need to do more so I will be continuing with this. I need to get good grades this year."

"Alright," said James, even though he still wasn't really happy about it, he supposed that it was what Remus wanted and it was just for revising for the exams, after them it would probably be over. Anyway, it didn't really affect him now so he should probably let Remus get on with it. "So, uh, has Lily said anything about me?"

Remus just gave him a look that made him wonder why he had bothered asking in the first place. "We just revise, we don't spend our time talking about the rest of you."

Although he had told them the most part of what had been happening, Remus hadn't told them that it wasn't really just about revising for his exams any more. Of course that was important but he could have done the rest by himself now. He hoped that the others felt the same way as he enjoyed spending time with them both, hopefully after the exams they could still spend time together other than for doing work. They all got on well so he hoped he could be friends with them as well as with the other Marauders. They were different but Remus felt he needed that contrast but given how tentative their final understanding has been Remus didn't want to say anything to the others yet. He still didn't know where it was going himself, it was possible that nothing else would ever come of it and this was all it would ever be so he didn't want to make it into an issue before there was even anything to make an issue of. Even though the others had eventually been understanding about the revision, they probably wouldn't be about the rest. Maybe given time if it progressed further he would be able to tell them but they would probably still need more time to get used to this first. He had known that they would overreact when they found out, but still, he had hoped they wouldn't. It had all seemed to work out in the end though.


	11. Chapter 11

Although the exams were finally here for all the years, as well as the usual stress that came with this time of year, the Gryffindors were all still mostly in a good mood as a week or so ago they had won their final Quidditch match of the year against Hufflepuff. This meant that both they and Slytherin had won two games each, but as they had won by a greater amount each time, Gryffindor had won the Cup this year. It hadn't been awarded yet, they would have to wait until after the exams for that, but it had still raised all their spirits. And, although they had lost their own games, the other two Houses still felt some of this.

Even though the others hadn't been too happy about it, Remus had continued going to the weekly study sessions with Severus and Lily. After their _discussion_ when the others had found out, they hadn't said anything more about it. Remus thought this was probably for the best, they had reached only a precarious understanding and if they discussed it any further they would all have to think more about it and then probably even that would disappear. So the other Marauders barely acknowledged him whenever he left to meet the others, continuing to act as if he was just going on his own. But even so, he felt like they were getting used to the idea. They had definitely calmed down since they had found out initially, 'they' meaning James. The others had seemed shocked as well and he supposed he would have been too if he had been in their situation, but they hadn't done anything about it. Sirius was still trying to make things up to him, and although it had made getting through that situation easier, Remus would still have preferred if he would stop doing that now, he just wanted to forget that it had ever happened and he couldn't do that right now.

The first time he had met them after the others had found out, they had asked how it had gone with the others and he had told them, mildly surprised at the lack of bitterness or hatred there, especially from Severus who had many reasons to feel that way, they seemed to only be concerned for him. Remus had been relieved that he evidently wouldn't get any trouble from these two at least.

He felt better about meeting them now that he didn't have to lie to his friends about where he was going, although they still thought it was just for revision and were expecting it to stop soon, when it didn't he would still have to tell them but hopefully, by that time, they would have gotten used to the current situation and wouldn't have so much against it when he told them the full extent of it though he knew that they may well take it worse than they had the recent news.

Now that they didn't have to be so concerned about anyone seeing them, they began to take advantage of the summer weather, often sitting out somewhere on the grounds inside of just meeting inside the library. It was quite calming being outside sometimes rather than being cooped up inside, especially when they were near the lake. They didn't mention the others finding out again and when he was here it didn't really seem to matter that they had, they just got with it as, now that the exams were a matter of days away, they were now focused on revision more than they had been and even strayed into a few other subjects.

But for now, these two parts of Remus' life were very separate. Each group never talked about the other one and they never mixed. Although he had not expected any different, this did put some strain on Remus who had to deal with knowing how each felt about the other and not mentioning parts of what was important to him or had happened recently to each group. This wasn't so much of a problem with Lily and Severus as they had never really talked about James and the others anyway and had known all along so nothing had really changed, but with the other Marauders he was reminded of how he had felt in first and second year before they had figured it out, like he had to constantly hide a part of themselves from them or face being rejected. It wasn't exactly the same now as they already knew what was going on but he still felt the same way even though he knew logically that it wouldn't be like that if he mentioned the others a few times. Their friendship had survived worse before.

Ancient Runes had been one of their first exams so they had met up just before it to go over it one last time. Remus thought that the exam had gone quite well considering how unsure he had been on the subject only a few months ago. It had never been one of his favourites but he had still wanted to do well. There were some questions that he wasn't sure on and a couple that he didn't know the answer to at all but he still attempted to answer all the questions. At the end Remus felt that he had done a good job on it, he knew that he couldn't have got anywhere near an Outstanding grade but was confident that he had achieved at least a passing grade, maybe even an E if he was lucky. Anyway, it was well worth taking the time and effort to revise with the others, he wouldn't have done nearly as well without it, the sessions had been worth it for that alone but he hadn't expected to have such an enjoyable time with them or even for it to have gone on as long as it had done. It was nice to have a pleasant surprise for once.

* * *

James had calmed down after he had got over the initial shock of seeing Remus with Lily and Snape. Looking back, he supposed that perhaps he had overreacted as Remus had said but he had been completely shocked and not thinking too clearly. But after Remus had explained himself and he had had time to think about it more he had accepted that it was ultimately Remus' decision if he wanted to do this, it didn't really affect him apart from there being less time that the four of them spent together. He still couldn't see why Remus would want to spend more time with Snape than was necessary, except that Lily would be there too, which he still felt a little jealous about, so he didn't ever bring up the subject and none of them talked about it again at that time. It wouldn't be going on for much longer anyway, now that they were most of the way through the exams. Afterwards, they wouldn't have a reason to continue so he supposed he could deal with it for now.

When the exams had been only a couple of weeks away James had actually started doing some revision. He had realised that he would need to do so to get into the classes he wanted next year in order to get into the Auror training program after seventh year due to Remus and his Professors constantly reminding him of it and, finally, it had sunk in. Even so, he had only really taken the time to do so for his worst subjects, not feeling that he would need to for the others.

Most of the exams had now been taken and James felt that he had done quite well in most of them, obviously not in History of Magic, which he considered to be completely pointless so hadn't bothered with learning it at all, resorting to making up details on the exam. He didn't think he had done well on the Astronomy practical either as he often didn't even go to the evening lessons as he didn't want to have to do schoolwork late in the middle of the night once each week and whenever he did go, he didn't pay much attention, not to the lesson anyway. They had also done all of the practical exams already and the rest of them had all gone well. Especially Transfiguration, though it was a shame that they couldn't admit to their greatest achievement in that subject.

By this time, there were only a few of the written exams left to do, James only had his two best subjects left – Defence and Transfiguration – and he was confident about both of those even after having done very little revision for either of them. After that, in a couple of days time, it would all be over. These last few months had been manic with hardly anyone being able to relax and with the constant stress of the Professors and the rest of the year, so much had happened this year but after the exams were over maybe everything would go back to how it had been.

In a few days, the exams would all be over and Remus wouldn't be spending any more time with Snape and Lily if it had been, as he had told them, just for revision. Also, no-one would be going on at them to 'revise more' and 'prepare for their futures' any more, not until next year at least anyway. They would finally be able to spend more time as the four of them all as there had always been something getting in the way of that since the beginning of the year. James was looking forward to it, they could relax and maybe get some more work done on the map before the end of the year as it was almost finished. Hopefully it would be completed soon, they only had two years left to make use of it after all.

* * *

Remus had got most of his exams out of the way now and felt that he had done relatively well in most of them, or at least well enough to pass. He felt like he had done especially well in Potions, both the practical and written, as they had gone over a lot of the material while doing their project for Slughorn earlier in the year and he had been able to remember most of that luckily, as well as having done some more revision with Severus and Lily on it the day before the exam as they were at the top of the class so that was a great help. By contrast, the History of Magic written exam hadn't gone so well, although Remus thought that he may have done enough to pass. He just couldn't seem to remember all the names and dates and other details of the various events they learned about. Anyway, he didn't find the course that relevant to anything in their lives. He thought that they should be learning about the actual history of _magic_ rather than all these goblin rebellions that no-one was interested in. They could have studied the founding of Hogwarts instead, for example, a topic that would be more interesting and relevant to their class. He knew that most people had the same problem as him, the trouble was with remembering what they had covered and with not getting everything mixed up if they did remember it, but it was easier to do that if the topic was interesting and that just wasn't the case. He wondered if anyone ever chose to do it for their NEWTs, maybe before Binns started teaching but he didn't know of anyone in their year who was doing so.

They had done all of the practicals already and Remus only had three written exams left over the next couple of days. Overall the whole exam experience hadn't been as bad as he ha thought it would be. Even though he knew it was much more important, it still felt like any of the other end of year exams for the lower years, though the practicals weren't with their Professors. Once he was actually working through the questions he had been able to just focus on that and it hadn't felt as stressful as it had when they had been waiting for the exam to start and he had been going over a few last things in his mind. Even though there were some things he just couldn't remember, Remus felt that this must have been because of all the work he had done to prepare for the exams.

Remus was confident about the rest of the exams to come, they were in some of his best subjects so he wasn't that worried about them any more. Most of the rest of the year were still stressed but at least it would all be over soon and they wouldn't have to go through it again until seventh year. Although he was relieved that the exams would soon be finished with finally, Remus was also worried. After the exams he wouldn't have an excuse or reason that the other Marauders would believe to continue meeting with Severus and Lily. But there were only a couple of weeks left of school after the exams ended, hopefully he could work something out over the summer holidays, he didn't want to do anything yet as he wanted them all to leave for the holidays on good terms after the year that they had had. But all that would have to wait until later, he had to get to the Defence written exam, it was starting in only a few minutes and he didn't want to be late.

* * *

Severus followed the rest of the class out of the Great Hall after their written Defence exam. He thought it had gone quite well, one of the best subjects he had done so far, after Potions of course, helped by the amount of research he had done last year. He had been able to finish in good time before the end and go back and correct a few mistakes that he had spotted when he checked through it all. Other than those two subjects, his earlier exams had also gone quite well, he thought. In Ancient Runes he felt he had done much better than he would have done without all the extra revision he had done recently with Remus. He certainly understood it better now anyway.

A few weeks ago, after Potter had seen them all together and then Remus had run off after him, Severus had been a little worried about him. Remus obviously hadn't told the others about them, he had never really thought about it before but he supposed that he should have realised it sooner as he probably would have done the same in that situation. He knew what the others were like and he wanted these sessions to continue. After Remus had left, he and Lily had continued to study for a little while but when it became clear that Remus wasn't going to return soon, they had left as well. It wasn't that they didn't enjoy spending time together, just the two of them, but after that unexpected turn of events, all of the previous fun and enjoyment had disappeared and they hadn't felt like continuing just then. Anyway, they were both hoping that everything would be fine and if that was the case, they didn't want to leave Remus behind on anything.

They had both been relieved when, in their next lessons together after the weekend, Remus had told them that he would be able to continue with them after all, so it must have gone relatively well with the others although, after that, Remus didn't talk about them or about them having found out to either of them when in class or their study sessions. This might have just been because it had been brought to his attention again how each group felt about the other as, before this had happened, there had at least been the occasional mention of his other friends. It hadn't been that common but it had happened sometimes and now it had stopped completely. After he had got to know Remus a little better than he had previously, Severus hadn't really minded him mentioning the others on occasion, as long as he didn't go on and on about them or try to justify some of their worst actions, whether against himself or others, but Remus didn't do that. Even so, maybe it was because of something else.

Even though the exams so far had mostly gone well, Severus felt that he hadn't done very well in History of Magic and the Divination practical, he just couldn't remember all the little details, the dates and various interpretations for the exams. It was different for the other subjects that he was actually interested in, like Potions, in which there was also a lot to remember, but it was harder when he wasn't that interested in the subject. He probably could have done better in those two exams if he had put a little more time and effort into them but as he didn't really need to do well in them, he had concentrated on the subjects he did need, which he thought he had done well enough in.

Severus walked out of the castle onto the grounds after the exam, it was almost lunchtime and it was a beautiful day so most of their year were taking advantage of the weather and staying outside before their next exams that afternoon instead of going back inside as they normally might. As he was leaving, he saw the Marauders in front of him, discussing the exam they had all just taken. They should really be more careful, Severus thought, anyone there could overhear them if they kept this up. He didn't see why Remus would want to spend so much time with them, they were just so immature and they could very well have killed him if things had gone a little differently. Anyway, he knew that he couldn't do anything about that now.

This afternoon they had their Arithmancy exam and tomorrow morning they would have their written Transfiguration exam, so Severus was heading around to the other side of the lake on the school grounds where he had agreed to meet Lily and Remus to do some last minute revision. He just hoped that it would be enough, he needed to well in this exam or have to rethink what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

* * *

After the end of the written exam, Lily quickly made her way back to the Gryffindor Common Room. She thought that she had done well in the exam, as well as in most of her other subjects. She hoped that she was right and all of her hard work to get through all the revision she had done in preparation for the exams had been worth it. Now, she was just quickly going to get all her notes for Arithmancy before she met Severus and Remus to go through as much as they could one last time before the exam this afternoon. They would all need to do well today to get into the NEWT class next year, which they had all intended to do as it was a very useful qualification to have as many employers would be looking for it, or at least prefer it over something else.

Over the past month or so, they had all put a lot of work into it, but perhaps they should have started sooner as that wasn't really enough time to revise three years worth of material. They had all been revising individually before then, or at least she had, but she still didn't feel as confident as she would have liked. That may have just been her nerves though due to her first real experience of examinations in the wizarding world, as in their most recent session there had only been one question that she couldn't answer and that was on one of the most advanced topics they had done. And she even understood that after they had gone through it, but what if her mind just went completely blank during the exam? That had happened to her earlier this week in her History exam, she just couldn't remember what she needed to write for the last question, which she would have had enough time to complete otherwise, and after a while struggling to recall the information, she had had to resort to making something up that she thought sounded like it might just be right. After it was over, she had checked it in her notes and it all came back to her. She did _know_ it, just couldn't remember when she needed to. But that hadn't really mattered as she didn't need a good grade in that subject and, from what she heard of the rest of the year, everyone had done quite badly on that exam anyway. But she hoped that she had done enough to avoid that in her Arithmancy exam, she didn't know which other subject she would want to do if she didn't get into next year's class. Maybe Astronomy, depending on how she had done, but she didn't want to have to admit that she had failed.

By the time Lily got back to the entrance to the Great Hall, everyone had already left. Most had gone outside, taking advantage of the weather as they wanted to get in a bit of fun and relaxation before their next exams started. Not many people, other than the Ravenclaws of course, wanted to spend this free time to get some last minute revision done. But her next exam was just this afternoon and she really needed to get all the time she could on it, if only to get everything fresh in her mind so she could remember it all easily.

As she made her way across the school grounds, around the lake towards the other side where they had agreed to meet, she saw the other Marauders just sitting around, not doing anything productive as usual. Potter was showing off as he usually did, but this time it was not for her supposed benefit, just for whoever happened to be around, as he apparently hadn't even noticed she was there yet. But this only reinforced her feelings of him, if he was only acting like this around her it could have just been out of a desire to impress her, not that his actions were at all impressive, but all the time just showed a lack of maturity that repulsed her. When would he ever learn that she wasn't interested? She had told him more than enough times, she thought, more forcefully as time went on. But it just hadn't sunk in by the looks of things and she didn't know what more she could do.

Hopefully she would be able to get past without him noticing her, she just wanted to focus on doing as well in her exams as she could, she didn't need any more distractions. But luck was not on her side today, it seemed, for just as she was about to reach the point where she wouldn't be able to be seen by the three of them, Potter evidently spotted her for he looked over in her direction. But she noticed this almost as soon as it had happened and, before he could do anything other than look her way, she just sent him a withering look and turned away again.

She continued walking over to where the other two were already waiting for her, trying to focus once more on Arithmancy, as Potter really irritated her sometimes and she just wanted to forget about him for now. So she put all thought of him out of her mind and just sat down and got her notes out, getting ready for the afternoon's events. She wouldn't let him ruin it.

* * *

But while Lily was attempting to forget all about James, he just couldn't forget about her. He, Sirius and Peter were lazing around under one of the big trees on the side of the lake. They had come out here after their Defence exam with no intention of picking up a book or looking over their notes this afternoon, after all they didn't have any exams until the next day, they had loads of time for that, if they did any more preparation for them at all. Their previous exams hadn't been that bad and they didn't want to do any more work if they didn't absolutely have to.

It was then that James saw Lily on the other side of the lake, but before he could even acknowledge that he had seen her, she turned away without a second glance, ignoring him. James was used to this behaviour by now, but that didn't stop the others picking up on it.

"Why are you still bothering with her?" Sirius asked. "It's been years now." At first, at the beginning of the year when they had all started to talk to him again, Sirius had just gone along the others, not wanting to say or do anything that they wouldn't like as their friendship was so tentative at that point. But by now, he felt comfortable enough to speak his mind, at least in situations like this where the others would be used to the sentiment and wouldn't take offence, as he knew that they still remembered what he had done, and with all this about Remus spending time with Snape, everyone had been reminded again.

"It'll just take a bit more time." James replied, not swayed at all, well used to everyone thinking that about him. "She'll come around eventually, just you watch."

They both continued this for a while, with neither making any compromises, until even that became too boring for them and they turned to more interesting matters. But Peter just watched them. The others had been like this for a while now, it seemed that everything was mostly returning to normal now between them, which was a relief after all that had happened and what it had been like at the end of last year. Back then it had been difficult for all of them, they hadn't been able to just have fun or relax together. There was always a tension and uneasiness between them at that time, but after the New Year, that had gradually improved until now, when it was almost back to normal. Peter knew how important it was that they could all have fun again together, but he had two exams tomorrow and he would need to do some work on those subjects today. He knew that James and Sirius wouldn't agree with him on that, so intended to do the work later today after they had all returned to the Common Room. He didn't want to upset the balance they had only just achieved.

So, overall, Peter thought that their friendship was all nearly back to normal now, but not quite. There were only the three of them here right now as Remus was off studying with Snape and Evans for their Arithmancy exam this afternoon. They had been doing this for a while now, but he couldn't understand why. Peter knew that Remus was intelligent enough to not need the others' help, he, and the other two Marauders, were usually at the top of all their classes. So why would he want, or need, to study with the two of them? He couldn't think of a good reason.

A couple of weeks ago, when James had summoned him and Sirius up to their room and told them what he had seen, at first Peter just hadn't believed him, thinking that he had been joking, which he had done on occasion before, not about anything like this but there was a first time for everything, after all. Although he didn't believe what James was saying, he had noticed that in the previous few weeks, Remus had been spending less time with them than he normally would, but he had just accepted what Remus had told them. But thinking about it then did make him question that. If it wasn't the truth, why would James do this now? There was enough tension under the surface between them at this point without anyone adding to it, even if in jest. Maybe he was just mistaken.

It was only when Remus had followed James in that Peter had begun to believe what he had said. And in the conversation that followed, this was confirmed. But while James and Remus argued about the situation more, he and Sirius kept quiet, even though they were obviously both quite shocked by this. He suspected that Sirius did this because he felt like he had done enough already, and Peter agreed with that. How could he have done that? Why? But he stayed silent because he didn't want to make the situation any worse than it already was. He thought that Remus must have a good reason for doing this, and had accepted what Remus said. The situation seemed to be resolved although none of them were particularly happy about the outcome.

After he found out, Peter noticed more than he had done before how much time Remus was spending apart from them. It wasn't an excessive amount of time, typically one afternoon and evening at each weekend but that was unusual for them. It was only now that Peter began to notice this more as he had previously been focused more on his own revision than where the others were at any time. He did have to put a lot of work into it to hopefully be able to at least pass the exams. Before lessons had started up again after Easter, Remus had spent time helping him with his revision when he needed it. He still did, even with the time he was spending away from them all, but just not as much. He still appreciated all the help, and it would hopefully be enough, but the other two would hardly ever help him with their revision, they didn't do much themselves really, so he did struggle a bit on occasion. Not that he blamed Remus for this, they all had to consider what was best for them right now.

He had tried to do his absolute best in all of his exams and had been revising for months, but overall he felt that they had only been alright. There was a few that he thought he had probably failed, but, as well as most of them which would probably get him A grades, there were a couple of subjects in which he thought he could possibly do better even than that. One of these was Defence, which was probably one of the most useful subjects they did, considering the current state of things as reported by the Daily Prophet. And although they were always getting new Professors, which might have been counter productive, they had usually spent the beginning of each year going over their previous work so that their progress in previous years could be judged and this was an effective way of getting them all to remember what they had already done, so Peter found that useful for understanding what they were doing and getting extra practice of whatever he hadn't quite mastered the year before. He also thought that he could do quite well in Transfiguration tomorrow, the practical last week had gone relatively well and, considering what he had finally managed to do this year, the written section shouldn't be that difficult as they had had to do so much research over the past three years, not just on the Animagus transformations themselves, but on various aspects of Transfiguration which they had had to learn. A lot of this was beyond what was usually taught at OWL level so this might give them an advantage if the questions allowed them to show off this knowledge as they obviously couldn't admit to what would, in other circumstances, get them the highest marks available.

But right now, they were just waiting for the exam and were becoming increasingly bored. There wasn't that much to do here and most of the rest of their year were so stressed right now that they probably wouldn't get away with doing anything that would distract them. So they were just sitting around.

Although he knew that they weren't doing it deliberately, Peter did feel a little left out by the current turn of events. With Remus gone spending his time with Snape and Evans, James and Sirius did spend most of their time together as they didn't want to revise as he did. He was glad, though, that after the exams were over, Remus wouldn't be spending any more time with them, as he had said that it was only for revision, and they could go back to normal finally, back to the four of them.

* * *

The Defence exam had gone quite well, Remus thought. He did have a bit of an advantage over the others with that one question, which would probably be the only time it would ever be an advantage for him, though he was still a bit uncomfortable talking about it even if it was only answering questions that would only be read by an examiner who probably wouldn't even know.

He had left the Great Hall with the other Marauders, all talking about the exam as they would usually do when they all had one together, with James and Sirius boasting about how easy it had been, but Remus wished on this occasion that they'd shut up for once and not talk about certain things when they could easily be overheard as there were still quite a lot of people around them. Apart from Sirius at the end of last year, they had all been very good about keeping anyone else from finding out, maybe it was the excitement of finally succeeding with their Animagus transformations that was making them less careful.

Remus had another exam this afternoon though, Arithmancy, so he left the others after they had made their way outside and made his way to where he had agreed to meet Severus and Lily for their last Arithmancy revision session. That was, this year as they all intended to carry on with it for their NEWTs so maybe they could do this again in seventh year. It had been incredibly useful this year so hopefully it would be then too.

But when he got there, only Severus had already arrived. Remus supposed that he shouldn't have expected Lily to be there before him as it was her turn to bring all their revision material and they had only just left their last exam. There just hadn't been enough time and he really should have realised that sooner than he had. They had now almost reached the end of the exams and Remus only had two left today and tomorrow, so soon he wouldn't have a reason that the others would believe for continuing to meet with Severus and Lily. He would have to come up with a reason to tell the others as he did want this time to continue beyond the next few days. Maybe once they had calmed down enough about this, he could just tell them the truth, it would have to wait though because he knew they wouldn't take it well. They probably wouldn't no matter when he told them but it would most likely be better if he waited a bit first to let them get used to what they knew already. It wouldn't even be an issue until the beginning of next year anyway, which should hopefully be enough time.

The thought hadn't crossed his mind before now that, although he might want to spend more time with them, Severus and Lily might not want to. They hadn't really talked about it at all, except for arranging the next time when they would meet. Although it was clear that they were all enjoying themselves, there hadn't actually been any indication that the others would want to continue at all. Remus was in fact quite surprised that it had even progressed as far as it had. At first he had thought that they would go through that one problem and that would be it but it had gone past that and now he was creating issues for himself that may not even exist. In this case he hoped it did, as at least then they could work through it.

At last Lily arrived with what they needed to work from, sitting down on the grass beside them. While they had been waiting for her, they had talked a bit about various things, checking how the last exam had gone but not yet wanting to discuss the next one, having a last break before they would have to go back to work again.

So for the last hour or so before the exam, taking a break to go inside for lunch, they went over everything one last time, focusing now more on getting through as much as they could quickly rather than making it enjoyable as they had previously.

Although it would mean the end of the time like this they could spend together without any further conflict, Remus was still looking forward to the end of the exams. The whole experience was just so stressful and time consuming that he would be glad once it was over. He just hoped that he had done well enough.

* * *

The next day saw the last of the OWL exams and the NEWT exams were now set to begin, causing a flurry of activity and renewed stress amongst the seventh years, but a great relief for most of the fifth years, although some were now worried about what their results would be like. Overall though, they had mostly all done as well as they could possibly have in their exams with a few exceptions who hadn't put enough work in to achieve their full potential.

The three exams left after Defence were some of the best scoring for many of the students, except for a little slip up in Muggle Studies. These were not considered to be the easiest of subjects so it may have been the extra amount of time before them, which should serve as a lesson to the students taking them to do more revision for their other subjects earlier in their NEWT year, but that was unlikely. At that time, they would probably be too preoccupied with other things to think about revising until spring came and they all suddenly realised there was relatively little time left. It was always that way for most of them.

* * *

It was now mid-afternoon of the thirteenth of June, the day after the full moon and James, with Sirius and Peter of course, was heading to the hospital wing to see Remus. They would normally have classes at this time but as the exams were over now and not everyone would be continuing with each subject, they got out of having to go to most of their lessons. Instead they would only have to go to the subjects that they had said they wanted to continue with in their interviews a few months ago for an hour or so a week for the last two or three weeks of term. In this time they mostly went over any problems that they had had in the exams so they would understand what they had done wrong and what they should have done before they started at a higher level. They were also given details of what they would have to do over the holidays, mostly some simple reading assignments of the topics they would do first next year and a few questions or an essay to do to check that they had understood it. James knew that Remus had also been given summary notes for everything covered in Muggle Studies at OWL level as well as the holiday work and was currently going over all of the material that he didn't know already. But overall, none of their year were doing much work at all right now.

There really wasn't that much point them all still being here, James thought, apart from the whole school leaving at the same time which was mostly traditional really, but most also make it easier for families with children in different years, James realised after thinking about it for a while. James knew that Sirius' relationship with his family wasn't very good although he usually avoided talking about them as much as possible and he wasn't sure if his family would come and get him from the station if they weren't there for Regulus anyway. So it was probably for the best even though they had to stay at school for a few extra weeks than they really needed to.

Last night had been the fourth full moon that they had all spent together and, like last month, they had left the Shack again. This time they had explored more of the grounds than they had last month and again there hadn't been anyone out there although they had all had to keep Moony from going too close to the castle which he kept trying to do. Overall though it had been more fun than last month as they were now more used to each other and to the situation as last month they hadn't really known if leaving the Shack for the night would work at all. But this time they knew more of what to expect and didn't have to worry so much about anything going wrong. The only thing that they had to worry about now was if they encountered someone outside or if someone saw them, but that would have to wait until September, the new school year.

* * *

It was now the day before all the students were due to take the train back home and now most of them were currently either packing or just relaxing in their Common Rooms or outside having either packed already or leaving it to the last minute tomorrow. At the moment Remus and the other Marauders were lazing around in the Common Room, not really doing much at all, just talking and joking around, there wasn't that much else to do at this point. Remus and Peter had packed already apart from the few things they would need tonight or tomorrow, but the others hadn't. It didn't seem to matter that every year they left it to the last minute or even that last year they had left it so late that they had almost missed the train back, they didn't care about that and hadn't learned from it. Well, it would be their own fault if they actually did miss it this year, Remus thought, he couldn't do anything else to get them to do it – he was lucky that he had even got them to do some revision this month.

It was mid-afternoon now and they were all still in the Common Room, not really having the energy to do much, exhausted from all the work they had done throughout the school year and from the recent exams and now mostly looking forward to the holidays. Just as the four of them were approaching the verge of being bored enough to actually suggest _doing_ something, the portrait entrance opened. They all looked over, they had reached the point where even this was quite interesting.

Remus watched as Lily walked into the Common Room and over towards them with a touch of surprise as she usually avoided being near James whenever she could, not that Remus could blame her for this with how he acted around her and with how he used to treat Severus. So he didn't expect her to walk right over to them, which is what she did.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" she asked him, pointedly ignoring James who was currently staring at her with adoration, but not trying to talk to her as he normally would – a sign of just how tired they all felt, mentally if not physically.

"Alright." Remus answered, he wondered what this was about, he couldn't think of any other reason than that she felt the same way as he did and wanted the three of them to carry on meeting up next year too. Or maybe she just wanted him to try and convince James to leave her alone or something by next year, perhaps he was getting his hopes up.

She nodded, "Outside then." She led him out of the Common Room and through the castle. When he had stood up to leave, Remus had noticed that James had looked jealous, again, that Lily had ignored him while specifically asking for more time with Remus instead.

On the way outside, she didn't tell him where they were going or what for and although Remus didn't ask, he wondered why she wouldn't say anything yet. He would have to wait until they got wherever they were going to find out, he supposed.

* * *

Lily led Remus outside to the place on the far side of the lake where they had met to study just before the Arithmancy exam. She hadn't told him anything yet as she wanted to tell them both together to save herself from going over it twice and so that they could see each other's reactions to it. Though she was quite confident that they would both want to do what she suggested but would probably need some encouragement from each other before they admitted it.

Severus was already waiting there by the time they got there. She had asked him first as she knew he would be more likely to be able to get away at any time without having a reason to give and also because she had known him longer. She hadn't told either of them that the other would be there as well so they both looked a little surprised but also like they thought that they should have realised it already. They walked the last little distance to meet up and they the two of them looked at her curiously, wanting her to explain why they were both here now.

"I know you're both wondering why I've asked you here." Lily began, seeing them give her small nods of acknowledgement, "Over the past couple of months, we've all got on really well, I think." Lily had enjoyed their revision sessions and how they had all gradually become closer and more comfortable with each other until they had genuinely enjoyed their time together. That shouldn't have to end just because their exams had.

"Yeah, we have but what's this about?"

Lily thought she had better get to the point soon as they were both seeming to get a bit impatient with her, probably still had packing or something left to do, she thought. "I'd like for us all to stay in contact over the holidays and then when we're back at school, if that's alright with both of you." She was watching both of them as she said this finally, they both seemed pleased and relieved that someone else had suggested it instead of them, but then had quickly tried to hide this, not wanting to seem too eager or desperate for this additional contact. And, as they had both been looking at her as she talked to them, neither of them saw that the other felt the same way as themselves.

As well as actually wanting to spend more time with the both of them, Lily also thought that both of them could do with having more friends. Severus was only really friends with her as most of the other Slytherins didn't approve of this and she knew that it must be difficult for Remus to get close to someone without constantly worrying that they would find out. This made her want to just tell him that she already knew so they he would stop being so anxious about making up excuses and from keeping her from finding out but she didn't think that it was the right time now. Maybe during the summer at some point or next year but right now, with everything that had happened this year, it would probably just create more stress and she didn't want to do that.

"Alright," they both answered, making it sound like it was just for her benefit but she knew that that wasn't the case and that they were both really secretly pleased with this. Lily was pleased that her plan appeared to have gone well, although she had thought that they both felt the same way as her, she hadn't been sure and knew that she couldn't actually ask them if they did as they didn't really like to talk about their emotions when it wasn't necessary.

She smiled, "Good. I don't have an owl," she told Remus, as Severus already knew and anyway they lived close enough that they didn't need to use one to communicate, "so it'll be harder for me, yours will have to wait until I have a reply or I might be able to borrow Severus' sometimes." That was one of the annoying things about the holidays being so long, that she couldn't contact any of her friends unless they contacted her first. She couldn't yet afford an owl of her own and her parents didn't understand why she would need one as they didn't get that most wizard households didn't have telephones. She was sometimes able to borrow the Snapes' owl, but they both wanted to avoid them as much as possible, so that wasn't possible very often.

"Alright." Remus answered and with that they all started to head back up to the castle, Lily still had a few things left to pack and some books that she had taken out of the library to revise that she still hadn't returned so would need to be taken back today before she forgot and left it until next year. On the way back up to the castle, she told them that she would see them both tomorrow on the train back and then made her way back to her room to prepare for the next day.

* * *

After speaking with Lily and Remus out on the grounds, Severus made his way back to the Slytherin Common Room and from there to his dormitory. Before he had had to leave to go outside he had almost finished packing up all his things to take back home for the holidays, so he made a renewed start on that as he wanted to get it all done by tonight, not wanting to leave any to the last minute tomorrow morning when he would be more likely to accidentally leave something he would need behind. It may well still be here by next year, but he didn't trust the other Slytherins enough to risk it.

When Lily had asked to meet him outside earlier he had wondered why. Even though the request itself wasn't that unusual as, at this time of year, they would frequently meet outside instead of in the library or somewhere else inside the castle, he could still tell that there was something different about this time. Lily had never been so vague when explaining what the reason was for anything, and he could tell that there was going to be a reason behind this as she hadn't seemed as relaxed or at ease as she would normally do if this was just more time for them to spend together. Whatever it was, it had seemed that she thought it to be quite important and quite important that it was done today, before the end of the term and they all went back home. Which didn't make sense, why couldn't she tell him whatever it was on the train back? Or once they were back at home? They lived close enough that they were able to see each other regularly without any real problems. So he knew that there was something more that she wasn't telling him yet. He just didn't have any clue what it might be.

When, around quarter of an hour after he got there, Lily had turned up with Remus he had been surprised at first as Lily hadn't told him that he would be there, but then he realised that he should have thought of that earlier as he had known that Lily hadn't been telling him something and they had all been spending more time together before the end of the exams. He was almost sorry that they were over because of that. But he still wondered what was going on, Lily had told him that it would only take a few minutes and they were all still busy getting ready to leave so maybe she needed to tell them both something, but he didn't know what.

When she had asked them both if they could all keep in contact over the summer, Severus had been pleased, and a bit relieved. Although he had wanted their friendship to continue, he hadn't felt able to ask. In fact he suspected from the lack of resistance Remus showed to the idea that they had all wanted it but that only Lily was able to ask. She was a sort of middle ground between the two of them, which would probably make it easier for her than for either of them.

He was grateful that she had bothered to do this now as he did enjoy spending time with the both of them, or even just with Remus, not just for academic purposes. It would probably be easier over the holidays without the other Marauders being around to oppose this, which they would likely do anyway, but if it only happened after a while once they were back for their sixth year then Severus thought that Remus would be less likely to go along with them, so he was hoping that that could be delayed if possible.

* * *

The time quickly passed until the next morning when all of those students who hadn't bothered with their packing the day before frantically rushed around trying to get everything in order before they had to leave to get on the train. Watching this, the others were now thankful that they had thought to get it done in good time and now only had a couple of things they had needed last night or this morning to pack away.

After this, they all made their way down to the main entrance to the school where they split up into smaller groups to get in the carriages that would take them back to the station, some of them, mainly the seventh years, saddened by leaving but there was mainly an atmosphere of excitement among the students, especially the first years for many of whom this had been the longest they had ever been away from their homes and families and they were eager to return home. But for most of them, it was just the time away from work and lessons they were looking forward to.

When they had arrived at the station, there was a sudden paroxysm from them all of hurrying to get good seats with their friends and exchanging contact information with people they might not get a chance to talk to once they had left the station but who they might want to talk to over the summer holidays as well as everyone mentally going through and checking that they had everything before they left.

But soon they were all settled on board and the train departed from the station, beginning the long journey back home, the last time for some of them.

* * *

Lily and Severus had a compartment to themselves on the way back home. For them it was a time when they could relax, having no pressing school assignments or family to deal with for those short hours, while they could hear the near hysteria of the younger years who still got excited about all of this, and sometimes even see them as they ran past their compartment.

It had become usual over the years for there to be fights between various students on the train back, perceived as being their last chance this year and when they wouldn't get punished but still the Professors usually found out and they would have to deal with it at the beginning of the next year instead. Lily was relieved that after this year they wouldn't have to deal with the Marauders starting anything on the train this year, not involving them anyway.

They spent most of the early part of the journey just talking, planning what they were going to do during their holidays and reminiscing about the past year. A couple of hours after they left the station, Remus popped in to see them both for a few minutes while he was doing his prefect rounds of the train. Lily knew that he hadn't wanted to tell the others that he was also going to see them yet so this was the only time he could manage and so was glad that he had made the effort to even do that. They didn't have enough time to really do anything then so they just confirmed the arrangements for the summer and bid each other goodbye before Remus had to leave again. The rest of the journey continued as it had been doing though neither of them were much looking forward to arriving home.

* * *

Sirius wasn't looking forward to arriving back in London. Mostly because of having to go back to spending time with his family but also because the others wouldn't be around. He wasn't even sure if he would get to see them at all over the holidays, in previous years he had never been allowed to see them much and could never have them over, and now he was probably still going to be punished by his family even more though they still didn't know what he had done. It didn't matter to them, it was just an excuse really.

So Sirius was making the most of every last minute on the train back which was why he noticed that Remus took longer than normal getting back from his rounds, but at that time he didn't think any more of it than wondering if there had been a fight somewhere else on the train. But even that didn't fill him with much interest as it might usually do. It didn't have anything to do with him and he wanted to remember as much as he could from this day to sustain him over the coming months. He hoped it would be enough to get him through, the start of the next year seemed so far away now.

* * *

Hours later, they arrived back at the station. Remus looked out onto the platform and saw his parents there, scanning the windows for him but they obviously hadn't seen him yet. They hadn't been told about what had happened at the beginning of the year and Remus wasn't going to tell them either, they didn't need to know, it wouldn't happen again and would only make them worry.

Remus was looking forward to the holidays. Although he did enjoy going to school and learning, and was grateful for the opportunity to do that, he also appreciated having a break from that and seeing his family again as circumstances this year had prevented him from returning home for any of the other shorter holiday periods. They hadn't really ever talked about it much but Remus knew that Sirius wasn't looking forward to going home, there was a look on his face that showed that quite clearly if you knew him well. And earlier, Remus thought he had seen the same emotion on Severus' face too. During the times they had spent together, the talk had never gone as far as to their thoughts on their families but Remus thought that the same sort of thing may be going on there as well. He appreciated all the help Severus had given him this year to make things easier for him and maybe, by keeping in contact with him and by offering his friendship, he could return the favour.


	12. Chapter 12

Less than a week had passed since the holidays began and already Sirius didn't know how long he'd be able to put up with his family for. As soon as they had got back to the station, and even before that really, he just didn't want to think about it before he had to, Sirius knew that this summer would be worse than they had been. This year, aside from the usual comments about him disgracing the family by being in Gryffindor and how he should be more like Regulus, they also had a legitimate reason to punish him and he knew that they would take advantage of this, he may not get to see his friends at all until September. He didn't know how much more he could take.

Around this time, there was another article in the Daily Prophet about another family that had been murdered. Sirius noticed, as he was sure that many other people had, that these attacks were becoming more frequent and also more vicious. Whereas before the families had only been killed, now the newspapers were reporting that there were signs that they had been tortured first, even the children. Sirius didn't know how this was allowed to continue, couldn't the Aurors do anything about it?

This was also the main topic of discussion over dinner that day, although the rest of the family apparently did not see this side of it, or even to consider it that seriously at all, save to express their approval.

"It's about time that something's being done about all of these people," his mother was saying in between courses, "this pollution has gone on for long enough. For too long."

At this point Sirius was fuming inside but just trying to get through the meal without causing a major confrontation which he knew that he wouldn't win and which would probably make things worse for him in the long run. But after her next comment about having to preserve blood purity at all costs, he couldn't keep it in any longer.

"But it's murder!" he cried out, seeing them all look at him in shock, both at him daring to speak out against them like this, and by what he had said and the obvious belief behind it. At that moment he didn't care what they thought about him.

"Sirius," his mother said quietly, as if explaining something to a small child that you knew couldn't understand, while he stared back at her defiantly, "it may seem extreme now, but sometimes extreme action is necessary." She regarded him for a moment, not knowing how or why her son could have turned out like this, "And you are not to become involved with anyone who is of less than completely pure blood," she continued sternly, "it's bad enough for us that you're in Gryffindor." As if he would want to be in Slytherin anyway. She obviously didn't know that it was too late to _warn_ him about that, and Sirius wasn't about to tell her. Normally he would relish the opportunity to shock the family by not agreeing with with their beliefs and expectations of him but, right now, he didn't want anything more to do with them at all.

Without even waiting until the end of dinner, Sirius shot them all disgusted looks and left the room. He didn't tell them what he had now thought of doing and they didn't really seem to care that he had left. Making his way up to his bedroom to pack, Sirius thought through what he was doing. He didn't know where he would go, didn't know where he _could_ go, but he knew that he couldn't stay here any longer.

* * *

So far, James had enjoyed the holidays especially the chance to spend time with his family who he hadn't seen for almost a year. They spent the time catching up on what they had each done during the past year, although they had written, there was only so much you could put in a letter. They also went on a few little visits to various attractions around the area and, although James would pretend to be reluctant to go with them, he secretly enjoyed them. Well, maybe not quite so secretly as he had seen his parents exchanging significant glances whenever he expressed even the slightest interest in anything when they were out, when they didn't think he was looking.

Even though it had been fun so far, having no work to do, James knew that after a week or so more had gone by he would miss having the others around. He was just too used to them being together and anyway, after the initial burst of activity in the holidays, there wasn't that much to do here. He would ask to invite them all over soon.

But right now, James had just been woken by a noise from downstairs. He couldn't tell what it was from here and it didn't seem like anyone else had been disturbed so he got out of bed and made his way downstairs to investigate, taking his wand with him as he had the articles over the past year or so about all over those families, not that if there was someone hostile there he would be able to do much. It was probably nothing anyway, just the wind or something falling over in the garden, but he should probably check it out just in case. There it was again, but he was too far away to hear it clearly.

More alert now, James approached the front of the house, where it seemed to be coming from. Now that he was closer he could tell that he was hearing someone knocking on the door. It sounded urgent, whoever it was, but who would be calling this late? Unless something had happened and they were here with bad news. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn't just a social call.

James approached the door slowly, now apprehensive but for a completely different reason than he had been earlier. He just couldn't think of another reason why someone would be here this late and be this insistent. Before going straight to the door to open it and let whoever was out there inside, James first went to a window nearby so that he could see who was there and prepare himself accordingly.

It was quite dark outside, with only a crescent moon and the stars for illumination, but he definitely recognised the person out there. But what was Sirius doing _here_? And at this time of night? They hadn't organised anything yet, not really even written at this point, but maybe an owl had gone astray. Looking closer, James could see that Sirius looked quite stressed, had something happened?

Wasting no time now, James went back to the front door and, after unlocking it, opened it to let Sirius in. Sirius nearly knocked on thin air before he realised that the door had finally been opened, stepping inside looking relieved while dragging in his school trunk which James noticed for the first time. What was going on? Had his parents kicked him out of their house? James knew that it had been bad but he hadn't thought that it had been anywhere near that level.

James closed and locked the door again before speaking, you couldn't be too careful these days. "What's going on?" he almost whispered. He knew that his parents hadn't been woken by the loud knocking so probably wouldn't even hear them talking, but he could tell that this was likely a conversation that Sirius would want to have in private, at least at first.

Sirius let go of his trunk, placing it gently down next to the door. "I can't stay with them any more. They're driving me crazy." He answered quietly, having noticed that that was what James had been doing. "Can you believe that they actually agree with all these murders of the families?" James hadn't known that their views went that far but Sirius wasn't waiting for an answer. "I can't put up with it any more."

Then, having evidently calmed down a bit, "Can I stay here for a while? I don't know where else to go."

James was still quite tired and not completely awake, but he still tried to process all this information and come up with the best course of action. He didn't see any reason why Sirius couldn't at least stay the night but they should probably wait until morning to tell his parents. There was no point waking them now, letting them get a full night's sleep instead of waking them up midway through might well make them better tempered when they found out anyway.

"Alright," he said, "my parents are still asleep so we can talk to them in the morning." Here, Sirius looked slightly abashed that he might have woken everyone up in the middle of the night. "Come on, I'll show you to a guest room." When he had friends over for the night they would usually all camp out in one room, but there wasn't any time to sort that out now and he was sure that they would both actually want to sleep this time.

"Thanks," replied Sirius, sounding greatly relieved. As if James could have turned him away now. Between them, they carried the heavy trunk up the stairs and carried it into an empty room where James left Sirius for the night. He'd been there many times before and knew where everything was so James didn't go into it then, just leaving to go back to his room after wishing Sirius goodnight.

Well, it had certainly been an eventful night, James thought, and surprising. He hoped his parents would let Sirius stay with them over summer, they had been alright with letting all the others stay over for a week or so during past holidays, but he knew that the entire length of the holidays was something different. He couldn't see them turning Sirius away given the circumstances but he really didn't _know_ how they'd react. He would enjoy having one of his friends here all the time, even though the reasons behind that weren't ideal. He supposed he would just have to wait until morning to find out, and try to be his most persuasive.

* * *

The next morning, Sirius woke up in an unfamiliar room and it took him a few minutes to remember where he was and what had happened yesterday. He couldn't quite believe that he had finally done it, it didn't feel real yet as though he had merely dreamed it. He supposed that it would take a while to sink in that it had happened and that he wasn't just here to visit James for a while as he had done previously.

He was still quite hungry as he hadn't got to finish dinner yesterday evening, so Sirius made his way downstairs for breakfast. He had been here enough times before to know where everything was so got there without any trouble. By the time he got there, James was already down there. Sirius looked at the clock on the wall, it was still quite early to be awake, given that it was only a little while into the holidays and that they both hadn't got that much sleep last night. He supposed that Mr and Mrs Potter weren't awake yet.

He was incredibly grateful that James had let him spend the night, he didn't know where else he would have gone. Perhaps he should have given it more thought before he actually did it, he had been fantasising about leaving home for a while now but just hadn't thought that it would become bad enough to force him to leave any time soon. It had taken him a while to think of coming here as he had been focused on just getting _out_ and not on what he would do after that.

Even after he had decided on coming here, it had taken him a while to get here. He had already left by that point and there was no way that he was going to go back there, so that meant he couldn't use the Floo system to get here. And although they had all ignored the law while becoming Animagi, that didn't extend to Apparition so he couldn't get here that way either. It had been difficult but he had eventually made it.

He hadn't thought that he might wake everyone up, even though it was quite late at night by that point and they must all be asleep by then. He had really just been thinking about himself. He hoped that when James' parents woke up this morning they would allow him to stay here, he didn't know where he'd go if they didn't. He hoped that they would understand.

* * *

They hadn't been down there for long, just long enough for them to both finish their breakfasts, when Mr and Mrs Potter came down to join them. They started to say something to James but stopped as they saw Sirius, obviously surprised to see him there as the two boys hadn't yet organised anything that they were aware of. They wouldn't have any idea why he was actually here though, so it was only mild surprise and curiosity that showed on their faces, not shock, and they quickly adjusted.

"Good morning boys," Elizabeth Potter greeted them, going over towards the kitchen to make some tea, "We didn't know you'd be here, Sirius, so you'll have to excuse the mess." For things had become somewhat more disorganised over the last few days as they hadn't had as much time as usual to keep everything tidy and organised due to all the excitement and activity of the beginning of the holidays. But why she thought that he would care about that at all, Sirius didn't know. "How long will you be staying here? James hadn't mentioned it." she finished, looking over at her son as if it was his fault that they hadn't known.

On hearing this, Sirius began to worry again. Last night he had known that he would have to explain things to them but he had been all caught up in the moment, not thinking too clearly about what was to come, and so hadn't realised that it would be here so soon. He didn't know exactly what he would tell them or how much of it to reveal. If he had had more time, perhaps he could have planned the impending conversation, but he would just have to make do now. Even though he had stayed here before and knew the Potters relatively well and liked them better than his own family, not that that was difficult these days, he couldn't help feeling like they wouldn't want him here the moment they found out what had happened. Part of him knew that this was just the insecurities installed in him by his family's constant negative treatment of him and that he really didn't have anything to worry about, after all James was there to support him, but he couldn't help how he felt.

Seeing the others' curious and now quite worried expressions, Sirius realised that he had been lost in his own thoughts and had missed part of the conversation. He knew that the moment had finally come for him to explain to them why he was here and opened his mouth to start, but then, not finding the words, stopped gratefully as James took over.

"Sirius got here last night," he began cautiously, not wanting to reveal more than Sirius would want him to, but knowing that Sirius would find this difficult so wanting to spare his friend that at least. James saw his parents exchange concerned looks at this, they had probably thought that he'd got here sometime this morning, but now realised that something must have happened to have prompted his unexpected arrival. "Some stuff happened at home and... well, basically he can't stay there any more." James knew that his parents would want to know more information but hoped that they would just leave the matter alone for now until Sirius was ready to talk to them about it himself.

The two adults exchanged another significant look, seeming to be silently communicating about what action they should take now, before speaking. "Are you sure it's that bad Sirius?" Elizabeth asked, "It could have all just been a misunderstanding." she concluded hopefully, not that she wanted to get rid of Sirius but because she didn't want him to have to go through this estrangement with his family if there was a better option and she didn't want any of them to rush into anything without thinking it through first. This was important.

"Oh, I'm sure." Sirius replied, all traces of warmth gone from his voice and expression. He absolutely hated his family, with a few exceptions, Andromeda for one, but that wasn't enough any more. James didn't realise how lucky he was to have a family that loved him for who he was, unconditionally, rather than one who tried to force him to be something he just wasn't. Sirius envied that at times, especially at times like these. While they were at school it didn't seem to matter as none of them had much contact with their families. A few letters from home throughout the year and, more often, letters going home to inform of their various... extra-curricular activities.

Sirius knew that the Potters were well aware of his family's reputation, everyone was, so they would at least understand that part of his reasoning. And, from previous visits here over the past few years, they also knew that he didn't really get on with them. At all. Sirius knew that even if he didn't tell them anything else about it, they would likely put it all together sooner or later and was grateful that he wouldn't have to explain. It wasn't that he was embarrassed or ashamed about the situation, more that he wasn't used to revealing such important information about himself to anyone other than his three best friends. He _liked_ the Potters well enough, but given his past experiences with his family, he wasn't sure if he _trusted_ them yet.

James interrupted his thoughts, speaking to his parents once again. "Anyway, can Sirius stay here for a while?" Sirius was glad that James had asked them and not him as he still felt awkward about asking for assistance from anyone, if it wasn't for something minor or insignificant and this was just the opposite. Sirius looked over at where the Potters had just sat down at the table and now appeared to be thinking it over. He didn't know what he'd do if they refused to have him here, he didn't know where else to go. He supposed that if it came to it, he might have to try Remus or Peter, but he hadn't stayed at either of theirs before and hardly knew their families so this was his best shot. If this failed...

"Alright." Nicolas Potter replied to James after more of that seemingly silent conversation with his wife. "You're welcome to stay for as long as you need to," he added to Sirius, "we have the space here so it's no trouble." Sirius didn't think he had ever felt more relieved than he did right then, except for maybe when they had finally succeeded with the Animagus transformations last year after so long and so much work, but, no that didn't come close, this was more personal.

"As long as the two of you don't get into any yourselves!" Elizabeth added, although they all knew that that was unlikely. "Maybe you could invite your friends over soon as well." she suggested, "You've not seen them in a while and I haven't noticed any letters yet."

While he and James were thanking them and making plans for the summer, planning to write to the others that same day, Sirius finally felt as if he could relax in the knowledge that he had finally got away from his family and would be safe here. He was glad that the risk he had taken in running away without having plans laid out first had paid off and, for once, he was actually looking forward to the summer holidays.

* * *

**Moony,**

**I know that it's only the beginning of the holidays and you're probably wondering why you're hearing from me... us so soon, but I have news. Good news. I'm at James' place now, I finally got away from them all last night and I'm not going back! I'll-**

_You can imagine the shock I had, finding him on the doorstep in the middle of the night! I thought we were being attacked or something. Anyway, my parents said that we could invite the two of you over for a week or so, how's the first of July sound? Let us know if that's alright._

**As I was saying, I'll tell you both more when you get here, I'd prefer to tell you in person than on paper. Bring the map with you, maybe we can get it done before September, leave more time for actually _using_ it next year. Now that all that's out of the way, how have things been going so far? I bet you've already started on your homework! We have two months left! Have a little fun first.**

_Get back as soon as possible with whether those dates are OK or not. They should be, but if anything else comes up let us know and we can change them. See you soon,_

_James _**and Sirius**

**

* * *

**

AN: Apologies for the delay with this chapter, I've had university interviews this month and then have exams next month I need to prepare for.


	13. Chapter 13

In the week or so that had passed since he had arrived here, Sirius had settled in well. At first, it had felt a little awkward but that soon passed thanks to the others' acceptance of the situation. The day after the Potters had agreed to let him stay with them, they had all gone out shopping as he had only been able to take with him what had fit into his school trunk and so didn't have that much with him. What had really surprised Sirius though was that, although he did have enough money saved up to be able to get everything he wanted himself, the Potters had insisted on buying at least part of it. He knew that they could easily afford that, and more, but the gesture still made him start to feel like part of the family. Not that he would ever admit it to James, of course.

Over that first week they all spent a lot of their time together, getting to know one another better now that they would be living together for at least a couple of months this summer, just the day before they had all gone down to the nearby Muggle cinema, a new experience for Sirius whose family would have never done that type of thing under any circumstances. Sirius had also settled into his new room, having been moved to one of the other guest bedrooms that was just across from James' room. Normally, when they all came over in the summer, they would all stay in just one room but now that he would be here all the time, Sirius had been given a room of his own. He had also been allowed to decorate it however he wanted, so after Nicolas Potter had retrieved the supplies from the attic, he and James had spent a few days doing that. After it was finally all to his taste, the time they didn't spend with James' parents they mostly just hung out around the house and garden, not doing much at all. The others had both replied soon after they had sent their letters out, saying that they could both make it so now they were both looking forward to tomorrow when the others would get here. Although it had been fun with just the two of them there, they were both beginning to miss spending time with the others as well.

* * *

Remus stepped out of the Potters' fireplace and left his bag to the side of it, he could see that there was already one there so Peter had already arrived. He looked at the clock on the wall opposite, he _was_ a little late – his mother had insisted on checking that he had everything he could possibly need before he left, never mind that he could always just Floo back and get it. She was quite protective of him, had been for years and mostly he didn't mind, but now that he was getting older, it did feel a little out of place.

He was excited that he was about to see them all again after the few weeks they had been apart. He supposed that it was because at Hogwarts they were together pretty much all of the time, or most of it anyway, that made it feel somewhat strange to be alone for any extended period of time. The four of them hadn't written to each other much since the end of term, in fact other than the invitation here, Remus had only received one letter from Peter about a week into the holidays.

However he _had_ been writing more frequently to Severus recently and also a little to Lily. Last year, when they had had to start working together, he had never expected that a friendship would come out of it, and he was glad that it had, for there was no doubt about that fact now, they _were_ friends, no matter how much the others here would protest when they found out. Remus knew that he would have to tell the others sooner or later, as otherwise they would still find out and it was better that they hear it from him now, rather than him trying to keep secrets from them again, but he still worried about how they would react. In his opinion, it didn't seem like something that was worth arguing about, they all did have other friends after all, but he knew them all, and knew that they wouldn't like it at all. He didn't want to tell them yet, to ruin what had been an enjoyable week for them all but he knew he would have to tell them before they went back to school. At least he still had almost two months left to find the right moment.

Since he had received his letter, Remus had also been worried about Sirius. They had all known that his home life was quite bad and that he didn't get on with any of his immediate family, but Remus was concerned about what could have happened that it had finally become too much for Sirius to even stay there over summer any more. Although Sirius had talked to them about it before, he had never gone into any detail and would quickly change the subject. Remus hoped that he would be able to talk about it now or soon, to anyone. He knew how much of a relief if had been to him after his second year when he could talk to the others after over a year of enforced secrecy.

He was looking forward to spending time with his friends again and was grateful for the timing of the visit, but ever since they had found out, everything had always been arranged around the full moons and, so far, it didn't seem like any of their parents had noticed, but why would they? It could easily have just been coincidence. Just like how, during the summer after their first year, he had hardly seen them at all as almost everything they had invited him to had coincided with the full moon. They had told him afterwards that they hadn't known and it had been better since then and he was grateful that they continued to do this for him.

In this time, he hadn't yet found anyone inside the house as he had been looking through some of the downstairs rooms, so Remus left the house going into the garden to search for them, finally spotting them in the shade under a tree.

* * *

Soon after they had all arrived, Mr and Mrs Potter had come out to greet them before he left for work and she left to visit a friend for the day, leaving them alone. They would return later that day, but for now, they had the house to themselves. Although Remus had arrived slightly later than they had arranged, the moment that Sirius had been expecting to come as soon as they were all here couldn't be put off any longer. He knew that they wouldn't be satisfied with what he had told them in the letters he had sent, and would want more information. In fact, it was practically the first thing that was said after the Potters left for the day. So, quite reluctantly, he told the others more about what had happened that summer with his family, just the basic details, probably nothing they couldn't have worked out for themselves if they thought about it enough, but he definitely didn't want to tell them everything, they didn't need to know about all of it. Even with everything that they had been through together, he still didn't feel comfortable enough to tell them every detail of what had occurred.

For a while after he spoke, no one said anything. Sirius thought that perhaps he should have told them all this sooner, when he had written to them as this wasn't the best way to start off the visit, with this awkwardness that they were all feeling now. The others didn't ask him anything else about what had happened after that, though they all seemed to understand, well, as much as they possibly could do without knowing what it had actually been like to have been in that situation.

Aside from all of that, Sirius was glad that the others were finally here, he had especially missed them all before he had run away, but even after he had still felt that there was something missing without them all here. It hadn't been the same with just him and James, though it was a vast improvement on the first part of the summer. With them all together again, it was beginning to feel like things were going back to normal again. Things were finally looking up.

* * *

During that week, there was more news in the Daily Prophet about the same case that had driven Sirius from his former home and, as such, this brought up bad memories of his time there and what had caused him to finally leave. This new article, as well as revealing the identities of the family of victims, again a less than pure-blood family, and that the unforgivable curses had been used on them, also stated that this latest attack had led the Aurors department to believe that these attacks had been carried out by an organised group and that it was very likely that there would be more attacks. The article, of course, emphasised the fact that the Aurors were following up on all leads and investigating very thoroughly, although this did not reassure many of their readers, including the Marauders, as no progress had been made so far, though these attacks had been happening, or at least reported on, for many months.

Aside from receiving this news, the rest of the week was much more pleasant than its first few moments had been. Although most of their time was spent at the Potters' house, they had also gone out to Diagon Alley one day, not to get their things for school – they still had months left before they went back, and anyway hadn't got their letters or OWL results yet, so they wouldn't know what they would need to get even if they did, but just for fun. They spent the rest of the time in the house, but more often, outside in the rather large garden due to the hot summer weather, allowing them to forget their problems for a while and focus on actually being children for once. So much was going on in the world and in their lives that this wasn't always possible.

On one of these days, they were all gathered outside, working on the map. Of course as they weren't at school, they couldn't actually do any magic right now so they spent their time planning the details of what they would do once they were back at Hogwarts – the passwords they would use to reveal and conceal the map itself and also decided on the design and wording of the front, ready to be done when they got back, leaving them more time at school to use it.

Other than that, they didn't really do much else, relaxing after the stress and activity of the recent exams. It was beginning to feel like everything was back to normal, for all of them, with just the four of them there (and Mr and Mrs Potter, of course). None of them were looking forward to the end of the week, but all good things have to come to an end, as they were about to find out.

* * *

Elizabeth Potter sat quietly in her kitchen, yes _her_ kitchen – she was practically the only one of her family that ever did any work in here, not that she blamed them as she didn't have a job or school to take up her time – on the morning of the day that James' friends were due to return home, except for Sirius of course. Even though her life this week had been more hectic than usual, making sure that they all kept out of trouble, it hadn't been as bad as previous years and she had quite enjoyed having them all here. It had reminded her of her own childhood.

At first, she had been worried about Sirius, it was obvious that he hadn't told them everything that had happened, but she couldn't really expect him to – he barely knew them, other than from what James had told him and the half dozen times they had met briefly. Given what she had heard of his family, she knew that it had to have been something particularly bad to finally drive him away. But now, after the time he had spent away from them and with his friends, it seemed as if nothing had ever happened and it was just like any other summer holiday when they would all visit.

It was a shame, she thought, that they would have to leave so soon, although she _would_ appreciate the quiet, well, as quiet and peaceful as it _could_ be with James and Sirius around. But the truth was that she got enough of that over the school year while James was away and, as he hadn't been back for either Christmas or Easter, she was mostly just glad that he was here, and having fun as he was now with his friends here as well. For that reason, yesterday at dinner she had asked Remus and Peter if they would like to stay for a bit longer, but they had both refused. In fact, they had seemed a bit agitated at the suggestion, saying they had to be home. That she could understand, they had been away for almost a year and would want to spend time with their families, but neither James nor Sirius tried to convince them otherwise, which she would have expected given their behaviour earlier this summer and over previous years. Perhaps there was a special event to get to, a birthday or anniversary in the family that was to be celebrated. That had to be it.

The four boys were outside now, enjoying the plentiful sunshine, Peter and Remus having both packed earlier ready for their departure that afternoon. Elizabeth had just made herself a cup of tea and sat back down to read the paper when an owl flew through the window, dropping the letter it was carrying on the table in front of her before flying of again. She picked it up and looked at it. It was addressed to Remus – the owl must have been confused, that quite often happened when the owl was too young or old, the latter in this case judging from its appearance. Oh well, she'd just pass it on when they came inside for lunch later. It may even be his parents, saying that he _could_ stay for longer after all, she'd find out what it was later, but she hoped that it might be that. For Sirius' well-being if nothing else.

* * *

Minutes later, James approached the house. It was now approaching midday and getting hotter and hotter, so he was going inside to get some cool drinks. He probably should have brought some out earlier with a cooling charm as they had on previous days but he hadn't remembered. It was a shame that Remus and Peter had to leave later today, James thought, but he supposed that he could always invite them back in a few weeks time, and Sirius would still be here, of course, so it wasn't like he'd be here alone.

James made his way through the ground floor of the house and went into the kitchen to get the drinks, then paused for a moment when he saw his mother sitting in there.

"What are you doing inside?" she asked him curiously, "Are the others still out there?"

"I'm just getting some drinks," James replied, "it's too hot out there today."

"Alright then," she replied as he got out some glasses from one of the cupboards, "You'll have to come back inside for lunch, I'm not taking it outside again after yesterday." They probably wouldn't be able to use those plates again, even after the cleaning charms.

Walking out with the drinks, James replied, "Fine."

"Oh," exclaimed Mrs Potter, just as James was leaving, remembering the letter that had arrived earlier, "Give this to Remus, would you? It got here half an hour ago, owl must have been confused." She went back to reading the newspaper.

James took the envelope and left the house.

But as he was walking back towards the others, he couldn't help wondering who the letter could be from. Everyone he knew of that would be writing to Remus was already here, and even if his parents had needed to tell him something they could surely wait a few hours until he got back home again. Unless, James thought suddenly, it was something urgent, what if there had been another attack? He knew that Remus' family weren't all purebloods, what if something had happened to them while they were all here, having a good time and ignoring the world around them.

Now that he considered the situation further, James couldn't think of any other reason for the letter to be here now. And if it did contain such bad news, they should know about it now, James reasoned, they would need to know so that they would know how to deal with Remus. They couldn't help if they didn't know what was going on, and it was best to be prepared after all.

As James broke the wax seal and went to open the envelope, he knew that he really shouldn't be doing this without permission, but he had convinced himself that this was necessary. If it was nothing, no-one ever had to know about this but he thought it worth the risk, and anyway he was doing this because he cared about his friends, he thought, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he was mostly motivated by his curiosity.

So, having decided that this was what he should do, and now only just within sight of the others, not that they were looking this way, James opened it.

He wasn't interested at first in reading what it said as he now saw how long it was, so just wanted to skip to the end to see who it was from as he now doubted that it contained any sudden bad news. This letter was too neat, not written by someone in distress and was clearly not written in a hurry.

Although he hadn't intended to read any of the letter unless the sender's identity led him to believe that it would be necessary, James couldn't help but to notice some lines that seemed to pop out at him as he glanced down the sheet of parchment:

_...saw Lily yesterday, at the park nearby..._

_...asked about you..._

James had a bad feeling about this now, there was only one person he could think of that would have seen Lily recently and told Remus about it. He skipped straight to the end of the letter, hoping that he was wrong and that there was some other Lily that Remus knew, a relative or a neighbour perhaps.

But no, the name at the end was as he had expected after reading that except that, if anything, it was worse: "Severus"Even though he had been expecting this, James dropped the drinks to the floor in shock. Why would _Snape _be writing to Remus? And since when was Remus on first name terms with _Snivellus_?

James sped up on his way back to the others, they needed to sort this all out, right now. How could Remus do this to them?

* * *

Meanwhile, the others sat outside, unaware of what was to come. While James had gone, they had just lounged about, discussing their plans for the rest of the summer. It was a shame that he had to leave, Remus thought, but he did also want to spend some time with his parents this summer. He hadn't seen them since they had dropped him off at the station last September, and though they had written, it wasn't the same. At least this year he wouldn't have the pressures of the OWLs so should be able to go home for the holidays. And, of course, there was the full moon to consider, he had to go back home for that at least.

Remus looked up, back towards the house. James had been gone a while, he wondered what had been keeping him. But seeing how angry James looked as he approached them now, Remus futilely wished that he had stayed back a little longer, enough at least to calm down a bit. What could have possibly happened in the minutes that he had left the three of them here? It had all been going well this week, which was a relief due to the tumultuous year they had had, and Remus didn't want whatever this was to ruin that.

By the time James finally reached them, the other two were also silent, in worried anticipation of what news he would bring. They could now see that James was holding something, a piece of paper, maybe, it was hard to tell. He held it out to Remus, still not saying anything and Remus could now see what it was – a letter, and it was obvious that James had read it.

Remus began to feel a sinking sensation – he recognised that handwriting. He reached out and took the letter from James, sensing the others' confused eyes on him. He didn't know how James had got this or why he had read it, but it really didn't matter now. It was too late. He knew that he was in for it now, judging by the way James was looking at him. No doubt the others would react the same way once James told them. And Remus knew he would. They really should have heard it from him, Remus thought, not like this, but he had kept putting the moment off again and again, and now it was too late to do it the way he would have wanted. He would just have to deal with the present situation and hope for the best.

After having stared at Remus for a long moment, James looked away towards the other two, still fuming but relatively controlled for now. "Remus and _Snivellus_ have been writing." He spat out, the distaste obvious in his voice. "All summer by the looks of it."

Silence. Remus looked cautiously over at the others. It was obvious already how James felt, but he hoped that they would at least give him a chance to explain before judging the situation. He _really_ should have told them himself. It was obvious that they hadn't expected this and, to be honest, Remus couldn't blame them for that, he didn't think he would have if he was in their position, but so far they hadn't reacted other than to stare at James, then at him and the letter. At least they hadn't started demanding explanations immediately or reacted in outright disgust. Shock he could deal with.

Then James looked back over at him, fury evident in his expression, "Why are you doing this, Remus?" He questioned. Not pausing to wait for a reply, he went on, "I could understand it when it was just studying for the exams, but this? He _knows_ Remus, what were you thinking?" He broke off, slightly out of breath and unwilling to see reason just yet.

From the moment he knew that James had found out, Remus had been expecting that the others wouldn't like the situation, but to hear this now from someone he had considered one of his best friends... After all they had been through together, especially over the past year, but also in general, he had hoped that James would at least listen to him first before passing judgement. He didn't appreciate the implication in James' reaction, he knew what he was doing and acting this way was only going to achieve the opposite of what James, and probably the others although they hadn't said as much yet, wanted – convincing him to spend less time with the three of them. This reaction only served to anger him as well, dramatically decreasing the chances that they could all work this out peacefully now.

"First of all," he replied, standing up now, "I'm doing this because I _enjoy_ it, because I like to keep in contact with my _friends_ over the holidays." Remus saw James start at that but he didn't know how he couldn't have realised it already from what he had read. This wasn't how he had planned on telling them, but part of him didn't care if he shocked them with this now.

Remus heard Sirius' voice, as though from a distance, telling them both to calm down and discuss this rationally, but he ignored it. "And, yes, he _does_ know about me, but he hasn't told anyone. Lily's friends with him as well, isn't that good enough for you?" he went on, maybe he could get through to James that way, but now as well as still seeming angry at him, James also seemed jealous – probably at the casual way he had used her first name when she wouldn't even _talk_ to him.

He looked over at Peter and Sirius, at least they hadn't reacted that way too. They were probably recalling the previous times that they had argued over this, not wanting to repeat them if it could be at all avoided, especially Sirius who would have normally agreed with James, but who had been without the rest of them for several months and probably was still trying to make things up to him for what had happened, even though Remus had long since forgiven him for that.

Remus could tell that James wasn't going to change his mind or drop the subject, even for just the rest of the day before they all left. Even with the unwillingness to argue of the others, though it wasn't acceptance, he couldn't stay here with James this way. Maybe he'd be able to talk to the other two later about it, and maybe James would eventually calm down and listen to him, but right now he had had enough.

Not telling the others where he was going, though they had obviously realised as Sirius called after him to stay and talk about it. A plea which Remus ignored as he made his way back to the house. He couldn't put up with this now. It hurt almost as much as when he had been told what Sirius had done, back in October. It was the same lack of consideration of his feelings and he didn't want to stay here any longer than he had to when any of them were acting that way. So, making his apologies to Mrs Potter after making up an excuse that he had to return home immediately, he gathered up his belongings and disappeared in a swirl of green flame.


	14. Chapter 14

AN: Thanks for the reviews risi and Metallic-Tears.

* * *

On that day, upon leaving the Potters' house, Remus had gone straight home, shocking his parents as he arrived out of the fireplace several hours early. Clearly, they had been worried, seeing his expression, and had asked him what had happened. But, still rather distressed, he had uncharacteristically ignored their concern and said that he didn't want to talk about it before retreating to his bedroom.

After he unpacked his things, Remus took out the letter from his pocket and sat down to read it and to write out a reply. No matter how things went with James and the others now that they knew about this, at least he would still have Severus and Lily – they already knew about his other friends and weren't trying to make him choose between them.

For the next few days, his parents tried occasionally to get him to talk to them about what had happened – perhaps they thought that while over there they had found out about his condition – he had never told them that they had already done so during second year. He didn't tell them anything and spent the majority of his time doing his homework and working through the Muggle Studies OWL course in preparation for next year.

But then, a few days later, another letter came for him, interrupting his new routine. Taking it from the owl, he recognised the handwriting on the envelope – it was from James.

Remus was a little apprehensive about opening it, what if it just contained more of the same comments as he had said in person? It had hurt him to hear that from who he thought was one of his best friends but he knew that he had to open it, he needed to know how things stood between them all. And, he finally admitted to himself, he had missed them all – he did hate being on bad terms with any of them, as he had been with Sirius last year. And you never know, he thought, maybe he's thought about it and come to his senses. Only one way to find out...

* * *

_Remus,_

_I know that you probably want nothing to do with me at the moment, but I needed to apologise. I _am_ sorry for the way I reacted on Wednesday – I just overreacted. I know that that's not a good reason but I was shocked and... angry, I suppose, that you hadn't told us yourself._

_Anyway, once you'd gone, Sirius got me to calm down and think about what you had said. And I realised that you were right. It _is_ your decision to do this, after all, not mine and though I don't particularly like it, what you said _did_ make sense once I thought about it for a moment so I suppose he can't be _all_ that bad._

_I must also apologise for invading your privacy, I know that I shouldn't have, I knew it then but I... well, I don't actually have an explanation for my behaviour, just that I was curious and a little worried as well. It won't happen again, I promise._

_Like I said, it's your decision and I shouldn't have tried to control that. I know that life is more difficult for you, so if you want to do this, I won't get in your way. Just don't expect me to be friends with him too!_

_Let me know if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, I am truly sorry. I'll understand if you don't want to talk to me for a while, though I hope that that's not the case, it's not the same without all of us._

_If I don't hear from you before then, good luck with your results (not that you need it). Again, I'm sorry._

_James_

* * *

Well, that wasn't what he had expected to see. Remus did appreciate that James was trying now to make things right between them again but he still felt angry at him, though not as much. He supposed he would for a while, no matter what he did next – at the start of the year, when he had started talking to Sirius again, it had taken him a while to completely get over the anger and disappointment he had been feeling, it would probably be the same this time.

Speaking of Sirius, it surprised him somewhat that he was being the rational one now, as he had never really been like that before this year, he had presumably learnt his lesson from what had happened that October and was finally growing up.

Remus was glad that James was actually making an effort to make things up to him so soon and that he was willing to accept, or rather ignore, this new friendship. He knew that he should have told them himself before they found out themselves so perhaps this reaction was partly deserved. He didn't know how he could have thought that they wouldn't find out, they had always discovered everything else with no input from him.

They would probably all have to work at it, and their friendship may well be a little strained for a while, but at least they were willing to do it and move on. Hopefully, they could make their way through this and become closer because of it. He could hope.

* * *

Two days later, on the day of the full moon, Remus' OWL results finally arrived. He still hadn't told his parents about the events of that week or replied to James yet, he planned to do _that_ in a few days time once he was feeling better again. He was still asleep when the owl came so was woken by his parents rushing into his room, holding his results excitedly. Unlike James, however, they were waiting for him to open it.

They were obviously excited about finding out how he'd done, but he couldn't feel the same way. Apart from the usual fears of failure, Remus didn't feel as though he could take any more drama, given the last few days. They weren't going to leave until they knew so he might as well just look and get it done, instead of dragging out the moment.

So, with a last look at his parents, who gave him an encouraging nod, he did so:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_Pass Grades: Outstanding (O), Exceeds Expectations (E), Acceptable (A)  
__Fail Grades: Poor (P), Dreadful (D), Troll (T)_

_REMUS LUPIN HAS ACHIEVED:  
__Ancient Runes:E  
__Arithmancy:O  
__Care of Magical Creatures:A  
__Charms:E  
__Defence Against the Dark Arts:O  
__Divination:A  
__Herbology:O  
__History of Magic:A  
__Potions:O  
__Transfiguration:O_

Well, it seemed like the ancient runes and arithmancy study sessions had paid off at least, though Remus was a little disappointed with the three As, he probably could have done better with those. But he had done well enough in the subjects he needed to get into his NEWT classes for next year, so it had gone well enough, he supposed. And he _was_ pleased with his Outstandings.

His parents moved around to read it over his shoulder, seeing that he didn't appear too distressed so knowing that it couldn't be bad. He didn't really mind them looking now, he would have to show them today anyway, so it really made little difference but he couldn't help recalling James the other day and wishing that everyone would stop doing this, if just for a moment.

"Five Os, Remus!" his mother congratulated, "That's wonderful."

"We knew you could do it." his father commented proudly.

Remus _was_ pleased that he had done well, and hadn't failed any of his subjects, but comments like this only emphasised to him that it didn't matter how well he did in his OWLs or even in his NEWTs in two years time, he still wouldn't be able to get a good job at the end of Hogwarts. He had tried to go through the school year without thinking about it much – there was nothing he good do about it, after all – but today he couldn't help himself.

"What's wrong, Remus?" His mother asked. She must have noticed how his mood had changed in the past few minutes, at a time when he should really be happy with what he had achieved. At a time when anyone else would be.

He told her. They didn't say anything. What could they possibly say?

* * *

All in all, Lily was glad to finally be back at home. This was the first year that she had stayed at Hogwarts for the entire year, in order to revise which she had thought would be easier when she was surrounded by others doing the same, she would soon find out if she had been right. She was glad to be able to spend time with her parents again after almost a year apart, although her sister was being a pain as usual. At least she could always get out of the house if she was being particularly bad and go to see Severus who she knew would also be glad of an excuse to leave the house. And this year, she was also writing to Remus after all the time the three of them had spent together last year, so she certainly wasn't lonely even though she was the only witch in the house.

One morning in the second week of July, while she was working on her Charms homework in the kitchen after breakfast, Lily started as an owl she didn't recognise landed in front of her. She took the letter it was carrying and watched as it flew out of the open window.

A sense of apprehension filled her as she looked at the envelope – it was from the Ministry and, from talking to some of the older girls, she knew that their results were due to arrive at about this time. She didn't feel quite ready to find out how well, or not, she had done. But the results had arrived and she would just have to get on with it and _look_.

Not wanting to face this alone and thinking that they would want to know how she had done sooner or later, Lily walked into the next room where her parents were sitting watching the news, noting how Petunia left the room as soon as she came in. At another time she would have been more annoyed at this, but right now she was rather preoccupied.

"What have you got there?" her father asked, noticing what she was holding and that she looked slightly distressed as she thought she must do at this point.

"It's my results," she answered, "they just got here."

But they only seemed to become more excited by this. "Go on then, open it." her mother urged, "What are you waiting for? Go on."

Lily nodded at them, trying not to show how anxious she felt inside. She resolved to open it straight away and just get it over with – it was probably mostly the anticipation that was worrying her. So she quickly opened the envelope, but with her eyes closed. When nothing happened, she opened them and looked at what was written inside:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_Pass Grades: Outstanding (O), Exceeds Expectations (E), Acceptable (A)  
__Fail Grades: Poor (P), Dreadful (D), Troll (T)_

_LILY EVANS HAS ACHIEVED:  
__Arithmancy:O  
__Astronomy:E  
__Care of Magical Creatures:E  
__Charms:O  
__Defence Against the Dark Arts:O  
__Herbology:E  
__History of Magic:A  
__Potions:O  
__Transfiguration:E_

Lily let out a breath that she hadn't known she'd been holding. That wasn't bad, she thought, actually she was quite pleased with how well she had done, although perhaps she could have done better in History. She looked over the paper again, four Os... and she had the grades she needed to get into the NEWT classes she'd signed up for – that was a relief.

But in this time, she had almost forgotten that her parents were still there, waiting. After a last quick glance, she handed it over to them. Looking at their reactions as they read it, she saw the confusion due to the unfamiliar grading system before they noticed the explanation at the top of the page.

"Well done, Lily," her mother said enthusiastically once she had finished, "all passed, and top grades by the looks of it."

Her father shared the sentiment, "We'll have to get you something for this. What's say we all go out shopping next weekend and you can pick out something." he suggested, obviously proud of her achievements even though he may not understand them himself.

Lily heard a noise from outside the closed door – Petunia complaining loudly about 'preferential treatment' or something. Typical of her to listen in on private conversations. But Lily didn't care, she was just relieved that she didn't have to worry about getting the results any more or about exams at all for at least another year. She wondered how Severus had got on...

* * *

Meanwhile, in a house not far away, a similar scene was taking place, though perhaps not as joyful. Another owl flew in through another window to deliver its message to another anxious Hogwarts student.

Severus looked up from the (Muggle) book he was reading and saw the owl in question fly past the closed window before entering the house into another room. It had to be his results, he realised, as Remus had only recently written to him and he hadn't yet replied and he and Lily had no need of letters.

So, in anticipation of _finally_ learning how he'd done, Severus made his way into the other room to intercept the owl before it made its way further into the house and alerted his father. This summer he had even had to do his homework from school only when his father was out at work so as not to aggravate him any further – it was bad enough without him making it any worse. He had also often gone out to see Lily in order to get out of the house in the past few weeks, but he would only be here until September – he could put up with it until then.

He walked in and saw the owl flying away again – his mother was already there, holding the letter out for him. From the look on her face, he could tell that he had been right in thinking that his OWL results had arrived. Although he did want to find out his grades as soon as possible, Severus was also a little anxious – what if he didn't get the grades he needed to get into his classes next year?

There was only one way to find out – he opened the envelope and took out the slip of paper inside. The two of them read it together:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_Pass Grades: Outstanding (O), Exceeds Expectations (E), Acceptable (A)  
__Fail Grades: Poor (P), Dreadful (D), Troll (T)_

_SEVERUS SNAPE HAS ACHIEVED:  
__Ancient Runes:E  
__Arithmancy:O  
__Charms:E  
__Defence Against the Dark Arts:O  
__Divination:A  
__Herbology:E  
__History of Magic:P  
__Potions:O  
__Transfiguration:E_

Well, overall it wasn't that bad, he supposed, though he was disappointed with Divination and History but he didn't really need them so it didn't matter that much. Apart from those subjects he was pleased – he had been worried about a few that he needed to get into his classes next year, perhaps that was somewhat irrational but he couldn't help but be concerned about his possible future career.

"Well done." his mother congratulated him quietly, but evidently not quietly enough for _he_ entered the room soon after, fuming.

Seeing the letter and recognising its magical origin only prompted another one of his tirades. Severus tried to tune him out – he had heard it all before – how all magic was strange and unnatural and that they would both suffer for it. He didn't know why they stayed together, there was certainly no love there.

He would leave now but he didn't want to leave his mother alone with him while he was like this – he wouldn't be able to do anything with both of them there, he would have to put up with it for now. Perhaps he would be able to get out later once things had calmed down and see Lily and find out how she had done.


	15. Chapter 15

He had been shocked to find out what he had last week, of course he was. But Sirius still thought that James was an idiot for reacting the way he had done. Obviously none of them were very happy with Remus' decision but that's just what it was. He had learnt from his actions last year to think before just reacting to a situation, especially in a way such as this which could hurt someone you cared about. He still remembered the time they had all spent apart last year, he didn't want to have to repeat that and he didn't want to be the cause of that again.

So, while Sirius did feel that Remus should have told them himself sooner, he spent most of the day after Remus and Peter had left talking to James. It took a while, but he finally managed to convince him to apologise to Remus, though it was obvious that he still felt the same way, though to a lesser extent now that they had all calmed down.

Luckily, James' parents didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. They must have believed whatever story Remus had told them and either ignored or just didn't notice the tension between the rest of them that day. Good – they didn't need to know about this, that would only lead to more questions, questions they didn't want to answer.

Hopefully this would be enough to sort things out between them all. They _did_ all have other friends anyway, though this didn't feel quite the same. Still, Sirius would not get in the way of this, he owed Remus that at least.

* * *

It was only a few days later, as they were all sitting down at the breakfast table, that their OWL results arrived. Sirius knew as soon as he saw the owls arrive that that must be why they were here, there was one each for him and James – that meant it _had_ to be school related, anyone else would just write to them together, and it was still far too early in the summer for it to be their letters for next year. 

Sirius had never thought that when this moment finally came he would be sitting here, with James' family. In fact, he had often doubted whether it would at all, given how close they had often come to being expelled over the years, especially after his behaviour last year.

That reminded him, there still hadn't been a reply to the letter James had sent to Remus. Although at the time he had written it, James hadn't seemed to actually regret what he had done, other than the fact that it had disrupted their friendships of course, but now he appeared to be truly apologetic for the actions he had taken, not just their effects. Sirius knew that he was anxiously awaiting a reply, he had seen his face when it became obvious that these owls hadn't been sent by Remus, but it would probably take time, he knew.

Oh well, there was nothing much he could do about it now, he had already done all that he could, so Sirius turned his attention to his results. He may as well just open them already, it wasn't as if he was too concerned about what he had got, just as long as he had done well enough to get into the NEWT classes he wanted. And if he hadn't... there wasn't anything he could do about it. Waiting would only give him less time to plan how to get around the teachers' requirements if he needed to.

So while the Potters' attention was understandably focused more on James than himself, Sirius opened the envelope and looked inside:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_SIRIUS BLACK HAS ACHIEVED:_

_Astronomy:E_

_Care of Magical Creatures:E_

_Charms:O_

_Defence Against the Dark Arts:E_

_Divination:A_

_Herbology:E_

_History of Magic:T_

_Potions:E_

_Transfiguration:O_

He'd done it, got into all the classes he needed and was on his way to becoming an Auror! The other subjects didn't really matter to him, but a T in History of Magic? That must be a first – he imagined that it would have been much more interesting if there were actually trolls in the lessons, rather than just his results – no one paid any attention anyway, they may as well liven it up a bit.

He picked up James' results from where they lay opened on the table, he wanted to know if they'd still be together next year, though he couldn't imagine that their results would be too different:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_JAMES POTTER HAS ACHIEVED:_

_Astronomy:A_

_Care of Magical Creatures:E_

_Charms:E_

_Defence Against the Dark Arts:O_

_Divination:A_

_Herbology:E_

_History of Magic:D_

_Potions:E_

_Transfiguration:O_

Not bad, though how had he managed to get an Outstanding in Defence? They'd always done about the same there. Of course, that meant hardly ever actually doing the work, or getting it from someone else, Moony usually, but still. The main thing was that they would still be taking the same classes next year.

"Well, how'd you both do?" Elizabeth Potter asked, and it was only then that Sirius realised that the two of them hadn't seen their results yet.

They handed them over, watching as Mr and Mrs Potter quickly read them both, "Well done, both of you. Two Os each!"

"We're so proud of you both." Nicolas Potter added and Sirius finally felt like he was a part of a family, _any_ family. It had never been like this with his own relatives – James was so lucky to have always had this.

"We'll have to take you out somewhere as a treat," he went on to say, "maybe you could invite your friends as well."

Mr Potter hadn't been there that day last week and so had no idea that anything was wrong between the four of them, but Sirius still had hope that they would be able to repair it, and soon, if only Remus would agree to come with them then they could make a start.

* * *

Peter had been shocked by the revelations last Wednesday but, not wanting to upset anyone, hadn't said anything. James had said enough for all of them. Though he hadn't done anything about it now, he couldn't understand why Remus would want to do that. 

Peter had noticed that he hadn't been spending as much time with them as he had used to but, like the others, he had just written it off as stress and revision for their OWLs. And, of course, James and Sirius were always together, well after the New Year anyway, so the four of them hadn't spent that much time together over the past year. It was different now.

Speaking of the OWLs, his results had just recently arrived. It was a moment that he hadn't been looking forward to but, like all such things, it couldn't be put off any longer just because he might want to. So, after a few moments of apprehensive, during which he had had to convince himself to _just do it_, he _had_:

_ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS_

_PETER PETTIGREW HAS ACHIEVED:_

_Astronomy:A_

_Care of Magical Creatures:A_

_Charms:P_

_Defence Against the Dark Arts:E_

_Divination:A_

_Herbology:A_

_History of Magic:D_

_Muggle Studies:A_

_Potions:P_

_Transfiguration:E_

Looked like McGonagall had been right about which subjects he'd be doing, but he didn't think that either of them, had expected those Es, he certainly hadn't. _How had he managed that?_ Apart from that, it was about what they had all expected, though he knew that his friends would have done much better, as always. At least he'd have _some_ of his classes with them next year.

"Your results?" Asked his father, as his parents walked into the room, alerted by the noise the owl had made when dropping off the letter – they really needed to get some better ones.

"Yeah, here." He handed them over, somewhat reluctantly – he knew they would be disappointed.

He could tell from their expressions that he had been right, though they tried to hide it with empty words of congratulations. They still hadn't given up hope that he would be able to improve, but he couldn't even though he was trying. He just wasn't good enough for them.


End file.
